


A Few Good Women

by IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: All Cannon Pairings, Drama & Romance, Episode Related, F/M, Family Drama, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Jack Has a Daughter With Rosie-That's the plot, POV Alternating, Some angst, some language, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2019-07-03 13:29:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 60,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15819843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237/pseuds/IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237
Summary: Jack Robinson, Detective Inspector of the City South Police Force is for some reason surrounded by women.His bitter-ex wife of ten years who has clearly moved on, his daughter who is not taking the divorce well.In comes Miss Fisher (Lady Detective) and Jack can already feel the headache brewing.





	1. Best Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, so here is my next story! I love Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and I wondered about Rosie and Jack and how in sixteen years of marriage they didn't have any children and then this little plot bunny was born! I am trying to keep this story as cannon as possible but there will be some changes as always. Also this will not cover all episodes or events that happen as some things might be missed. All major plots however will be covered. 
> 
> Also I am not an expert on 1920s Australia. I am going by the show so any historical accuracy again is unintended. 
> 
> Again as I have said in previous stories-spelling and grammar is not my strongest suit so if there are any inaccuracies then I apologise in advance. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think

When Collins had come to the door looking as if he would for all the world not be the one bringing him this news Jack Robinson, Detective Inspector of the City South Police Force knew instantly who he was escorting into his office. There was only one woman who could give Hugh Collins that sympathetic look on his face as if he understood without ever being married Jack’s pain and suffering when it came to women.

“Sorry sir but your wife and daughter are both here”

Jack closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds wondered what on earth he could have done to deserve this and then opened them again. This was typical Rosie he thought to himself. There was a murder and he was supposed to be off investigating it but Rosie was standing in his way. Again.

“Send them in Collins” he said standing up and wishing he had a drink. John Andrews it seemed would have to wait a little longer for him to get there.

Collins nodded and then opened the door.

Rosie came striding in looking like she owned the world and then without warning dumped her coat on his chair. Ellie followed her mother scowling and there was what looked like a furious scratch mark on her cheek and her knuckles were bruised.

“She’s been suspended Jack” Rosie said sitting down as Collins closed the door. Ellie leaned against the nearest surface closer to her mother and shot him a look that plainly said she was not bothered by anything Rosie said.

“What?” He exclaimed. Ellie shrugged.

“She punched two girls and deliberately started a fight with her teacher” Rosie said looking mutinous. “And when I got there and the headmistress asked what was going on she let out the foulest language I have ever heard”

“It wasn’t the foulest” Ellie interjected. “I just said that they started it and I didn’t want to go home with that fucking tramp” She indicated her mother with a jerk of her head and Rosie sighed as if she was used to it. Considering how his daughter had been reacting since the news of her mother’s affair with Sidney had gotten out Jack supposed she was.

“Eleanor Mary Robinson” Jack growled because whatever he thought personally Rosie was still his wife and Ellie still had a shot to get herself into university.

Ellie snorted.

“She wants to live with you Jack” Rosie said and only the small tremble in her voice showed him how hurt she was at their daughter’s attitude. “After the divorce. I know we said we’d take fifty-fifty custody but…I just cannot take this anymore. She needs to live with you. I just add oil onto the flames”

Oh fuck.

“Rosie” he began but it was drowned out by Ellie’s loud “Thank God she get’s it. It’s a bonified miracle”

“Ellie!” he shouted and she fell silent.

“Go wait outside and don’t scare my constable”

Ellie shoved herself off his filing cabinet—and her skirt was really short—and then strutted outside his office with the gait of a girl who knew she had just got what she really wanted.

As soon as the door shut Rosie closed her eyes.

Jack poured her a scotch.

“How bad is it?” he asked honestly.

“She refuses to have anything to do with me. She wont talk, this is the third fight this month, I…Jack I don’t know what to do. I know she’s upset but…father cannot even get through to her and she’s made it perfectly clear that she wants to live with you rather than me. She’s a different person when she thinks she’s going to see you. And I don’t know what to do anymore. Sidney thinks this is for the best, so does father. Maybe you can get her to stop hating me”

She took a large mouthful of scotch.

Jack sighed.

“Alright” he said turning to his desk. “If you think that’s for the best. How long did they suspend her for?”

“A week. But the headmistress made it clear that if this happens again she’s expelled.”

Jack groaned.

“I’ll have her stuff dropped off tonight” Rosie said and Jack knew she wanted to save face in front of him. “And if she still feels like this when we go to court I think you might end up with custody. You know the judge might ask to speak with her what with her being sixteen”

Jack nodded not sure what to say. Rosie perhaps feeling the awkwardness stood up and left. As soon as the door to the prescient shut there was a knock at the door and he saw his daughter peep round it.

“Apparently your staying with me” Jack deadpanned hoping to let her know with his tone of voice that he was not pleased with her behaviour even if he was secretly pleased with the outcome.

Ellie at least had the grace to look somewhat ashamed of herself. But then she had crossed the room and hugged him with enough force that he felt his ribs ache. He laughed, he couldn’t help himself. Ellie had grown from being the little five year old who had thrown herself at him when he had come back from the war to a grown woman in her own right with long dark hair and dark eyes, right down to the long legs that Jack knew boys in her school were looking at even if made him want to arrest them.

“Thanks Dad” she said into his jacket. Jack nodded trying not to grin. He had wanted Ellie to live with him if he was being honest with himself since Rosie had announced her desire to divorce and marry Sidney and he knew Ellie had felt the same at the time. Apparently being difficult had won out and while he did feel for his soon to be ex he had to be glad that her method’s had won him this.

“But that doesn’t mean your not in trouble.” He said before she saw him grinning and somehow wormed her way out of trouble. “Because you are. Suspended? Fighting? Swearing like a warfie? Not happening Ellie. You want to stay with me it’s got to stop. Otherwise I will send you back to your mother”

It was an empty threat but Ellie didn’t know that.

“It will be like it never happened” she promised and Jack had the heart to believe her.

“Alright. Look I’ve got to do some more work to do. Someone’s just been murdered and the wife is a friend of Prudence Stanley”

“That old woman who owns like a quarter of Melbourne?”

“Not quite but close enough” he said grinning. Ellie grinned back at him and it was remarkable the chance that had come over her since his wife had left.

“Look I’m going to go, stay here do your homework and don’t badger anyone who rings ok?” he dropped a kiss onto her head and Ellie nodded looking happier than she had been in months.

“All alright Sir?” Collins asked from where he had gotten the car to the front of the station. He looked behind Jack and then up at the sky as if he expected Rosie to descend from the ceiling like a giant dragon. Jack smiled, Collins had great potential but he needed guiding, he was naïve but a good copper who might one day be a great detective.

“All good Collins. To the Andrew’s residence please.”

“Alright” Collins got the car to start with a lurch that nearly sent Jack flying. The boy could perhaps use another lesson behind the wheel before he got his stripes. “The morgue has been informed”

“Good” Jack said looking out of the window. He knew there was a murder to solve, a dead body to deal with and grieving relatives and that showing up looking like Christmas had come early was not the best idea but he found he could not care in the slightest. He found he could not keep the smile off his face.

At least until he met Miss Phryne Fisher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie had completed two essays and a rather tricky set of sums before she was back in the office. Her Dad had decided that during her suspension she was not to be let out of her sight until she was back in school. Considering what she had done was rather drastic Ellie could understand and accept his terms. She had gotten what she wanted anyway. She could take a bit of punishment either way.

She was reading in his office when he went out to deal with whomever it was creating havoc at the front desk. She wasn’t snooping really. It was his fault that he had left the door opened and when a female voice started speaking curiosity compelled her to get to her feet and stare.

It was two men who she suspected were the ‘Red Raggers’ that her father constantly talked about who ran a less than legitimate cabbie in the city and a woman whose back was to the door. Looking at her Ellie could see that she had a short bob for hair and a hat and dress that would cost more than she suspected most people earned in six months.

They were talking about someone called Butcher George who apparently ran an abortion racket. Ellie who had known a girl in the upper school who had, had an abortion and died from it frowned. Women she had always believed had the right to decide what they did to their own body and she had more than once whished she was brave enough to campaign for it like other women did.

“What’s the penalty for precuring an abortion now?” the woman asked and her Dad shrugged.

“Ten to fifteen years if you go by the book”

Ellie couldn’t help her snort.

Everyone turned to look at her the woman’s eyebrows raising.

“If you don’t want me to listen in don’t leave your door open” she said to her Dad coming out of the office and into the reception area. Her Dad rolled his eyes.

“Morning Miss Robinson” the warfie called Cec said smiling. Ellie smiled back. The woman’s eyes went back between Ellie and her Dad as if she was trying to put together a puzzle piece. Her Dad caught her expression and rolled his eyes looking extraordinary put out.

“Miss Phryne Fisher. My daughter Eleanor Robinson”

“Ellie” Ellie said holding out her hand. Miss Fisher took it with a smile.

“Phryne. Forgive me shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I was suspended for a week for fighting” Ellie said grinning.

Both Cec and Burt chuckled. Miss Fisher raised an eyebrow. “How’d you leave it?”

“Both whimpering and calling for their mother’s”

“Good girl” she said approvingly. Ellie grinned, her Dad rolled his eyes again as if wondering what he had done to deserve this. Collins snorted but managed at the last minute to turn his laugh into a hacking kind of cough that fooled nobody.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What had happened in the Turkish bathhouse between Miss Fisher, the Russian dancer and Lydia Andrews nobody knew least of all him but Jack was just glad to have a case closed and nothing more to do with that woman. He was dealing with two difficult ones at the minute—he didn’t need a third on top of it.

Ellie came in post in hand just as he was enjoying his morning coffee.

“Miss Fisher has invited us both to the Marigold tearooms for an announcement at lunchtime” she said handing him a printed invitation. Jack sighed.

“Perhaps she’s going to announce she’s leaving Australia” he said. Ellie laughed.

“I’ll go get dressed” she said disappearing up the stairs and Jack had to hide his smile at how much he enjoyed having his daughter here with him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phryne smiled as Detective Inspector Robinson (in his suit and tie) his daughter Eleanor (in a rather nice red dress and matching shoes) and Constable Hugh Collins (in uniform) entered the room. After a bit of banter between the two of them about bordello’s that she was willing to bet went straight over both his daughter and his Constable’s head she turned to Mac who handed all three of them a glass of champagne.

She noted with wry amusement that Inspector Robinson whipped his daughter’s glass out of her hand instantly.

“To my oldest friend on her newest adventure” Mac began grinning.

“Miss Phryne Fisher, Lady Detective”

Jack Robinson inhaled half of his champagne. Hugh Collins looked stunned. Ellie Robinson however looked rather impressed.

Phryne smiled at both of them feeling on top of the world.

“I do like the sound of that” she said winking before she took a sip of her champagne.

To the newest adventure it seemed.

Ellie Robinson giggled. Jack Robinson looked furious. Phryne grinned


	2. Equal And Opposite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Miss Fisher adopts a ward, Ellie Robinson learns about the war and Jack Robinson has to deal with interference into his cases from the new Lady Detective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter. Again I have took some liberties with the past especially with the war. I have looked over episodes and extra bits where Jack past has been discussed and also I have taken some liberties with characters and episodes and with the text used in epsidoes previosuly. 
> 
> Like i say this period of history is somehwhat unfamiler i am going of the show rahter than reaserch and i know that sometimes the show took some liberties so therefore i do apologise for any major inaccuries. 
> 
> Discalaimer-Nothing in this chapter is mine. 
> 
> Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.

The days following his daughter’s arrival were some of the best in the personal life of Detective Inspector Jack Robinson but also some of the more…trying…times in his professional life. It wasn’t his father in law who was rather understanding of Jack taking in his daughter (and had on more than one occasion offered to chip Jack a bit here and there so he could cover his daughter not that he needed it. Unlike Rosie’s fiancé Sidney he had not invested with no clue and hoped for the best—he did have some tucked away for a rainy day), it wasn’t the mountain of cases that got bigger and bigger and with only Collins to work them that meant the paperwork took longer.

It was the arrival of the whirlwind (and not an altogether nice one) that was Miss Phryne Fisher.

Everywhere that woman went either death or trouble followed her and more to the point since she had started her damn buisness she had not been laughed out of her shiny shoes like Jack had hoped but rather taken on by many of the upper class toffs in Victoria and Melbourne and then what did that say about the police force?

“Nothing good” Ellie would reply dutifully when Jack raised these concerns to his daughter. The problem was he got the impression she was rather amused by Miss Fisher rather than annoyed by her though she had (to the best of his knowledge) only met her the one time.

“You and her” Ellie said looking up from her book “Are equals in many ways and opposites in many others. The problem that you both find is trying to exist in that world”

“Are you reading those funny books that I confiscate from commie’s down at the station?” Jack snapped back at her after the whole debacle on the Ballart Train. Ellie shrugged looking at him finally. “Weather I read the books Bert got confiscated or not it doesn’t change the fact that Miss Fisher is here to stay and it might be easier for all of us if you learnt to accept it”

Sometimes he wondered if his daughter was going on sixty rather than sixteen.

To cop matters off she had now adopted a run-away by the name of Jane Ross who was on a good day a thief and God only knows what on a bad day. Jack had no idea how Miss Fisher was going to adapt to parenting and there was not much advice he could give her because well…he was in the midst of a divorce, hammering out some kind of custody settlement and trying to change his habits so rather than a sandwich and whiskey pouring over the case files to coming home at a reasonable time. Ellie was far more a better cook than he was and she managed to have something hot and somewhat enjoyable to eat on the table when he got home.

All in all it was a routine that was working rather well. Ellie’s suspension was over and she was back at school and her behaviour seemed to have quietened down somewhat. Rosie was still it seemed the villain in the story but at least there was no swearing like a warfie which he supposed was something.

And more to the point during the investigation into the two rugby players and the following investigation at the Green Mill Murder his daughter had not ran into Miss Fisher. Which was a very good thing in his opinion. The last thing he wanted was his headstrong daughter thinking that Miss Fishers method’s were acceptable.

Just when things were slowing down he received a call at his home address in the middle of the night telling him that there was a shooting at the docks. Revolution was not something that the government were generally prepared for considering it was ten years since the last war but Jack knew that all sorts of nationalities lived in Australia and strikes were something that the higher ups feared more than double murders. Especially considering the policemen strike of 1923. That had been an almost tipping point for many men including himself. So the news of a shooting at a docks by men shouting in some sort of Slavic language was not something to be taken lightly.

He left Ellie a note and then disappeared only to find when he got to the docks there was blood, bullet casings, a feeling he had not had since 1914 and the fact that his constable had gone off duty to give a blood covered, half naked Miss Fisher a ride home.

He took the Browning bullets home with him. One pack. The rest he kept under guard away from the public under the guard of two constables. Borrowed they were and therefore trust was something of an issue but Jack knew all of his underlings couldn’t be Hugh Collins who while slightly naïve when it came to the subject of women and life in general had all the makings of a rather good copper.

Ellie was already in bed when he’d got home and she’d left him some soup in the pan. Jack didn’t have the heart to eat. There was something about this case that was bugging him and he couldn’t figure out what or why. It wasn’t like this was the first case he had dealt with in the last ten years where the war had come up.

He remembered it only too well. Being married. Rosie being pregnant and him going off to war not knowing if he would ever see his child be born or even see her alive. He remembered getting the photograph of his wife and his newborn. Rosie had called her Eleanor Mary after both their mothers and that photograph that had steadily got dirtier and more frayed as time went on became his sanity. It was the thing he gazed at when he came back somehow over the trench from ‘walking fire’. He had been wounded in 1916 and had been rewarded with a two year old who didn’t know him and then just as he had gotten to know her he was sent back.

He had been in Paris when the war ended with other Australian’s and Americans and they had all been hysterical when the war ended. The French had handed out food and wine to everyone and anyone and many men gained and then gambled away small fortunes. He had never drank so much champagne in his life and then when he had come back it had been too a four year old and a wife and life where he had to forget that the shootings he was involved in were not German officers and the loud bangs of car backfires were not shelling’s.

And he was lucky. Oh Jack knew he was lucky in the same way that Burt and Cec knew they were. They had come back with their lungs, their limbs, their bodies intact, they had come back with sight and hearing and the ability to work, they had come back with their lives when so many men had not. And they had tried to live. Until recently Jack Robinson had thought he was doing a rather good job. He had a career at his age that many others did not. He was respected and he had money—the divorce had not changed that considering Rosie had been the one who had (under protest—he had his pride after all) put her name on the papers as the one who had committed infidelity.

He was alive. He had been fine.

And one bullet brought it all back.

So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he didn’t hear the door to the second bedroom in his modest house open and the sound of feet pattering down the stairs. He only noticed Ellie was standing there when she plucked the bullet out of his hand and rolled it around her fingertips.

There was a pause where she stood there the bullet in her hand.

“You know” Ellie said finally. “You never talk about the war. We learn about it in school…Australia’s involvement in the Great War. But you never talk about it.”

There was a long pause where Jack didn’t speak. How the hell was he supposed to answer that?

“No” he said finally and then because he understood Rosie in the way that she was looking at him. Wondering if he was alright and trying to tamper her curiosity with what was sympathy. As with his ex-wife he noted with his daughter he would rather have the former rather than the latter. He took in the look on her face and then he spoke trying to find the words to the horrors that he had seen in the four years he had been at war.

“I don’t want to talk about the war” he said taking the bullet off him. “It’s not that I trust you…it’s that…it’s dark and—difficult and I don’t—” he shook his head as he tired to rid his brains of the remembrance of shelling and screaming and his nostrils of smoke and blood and death.

Ellie to her credit didn’t comment on it but instead she looked down at her hands.

“Dad…is there going to be a revolution?”

“No” he said clearing his throat. There were a lot of things that he didn’t know the truth about but he knew the truth about that. There was not going to be a revolution.

“Dad…” she asked again “Do you mind if I go to Miss Fisher’s tomorrow after school?”

He looked at her. The actual answer was yes he did mind because trouble seemed to follow Miss Fisher like a moth to a flame and his daughter was highly adventurous and probably more political than she was letting on. The last thing he needed was for his little girl to be involved in some sort of Latvian trouble. But then again he knew his Ellie. She was going to go to Miss Fisher after all regardless of what was going on or if the woman was being shot at by a gang of murderous Latvians and therefore he nodded. After all he would rather know where she was before she sneaked off somewhere and if all hell broke loose he wouldn’t know where she was.

“Alright” he said finally. “But off to bed with you”.

Ellie smiled and he accepted the one armed hug he threw her and then she was off up the stairs and she was gone back to dreams that were not filled with war or shelling or death.

Jack would have given the world for him to say it would have been the same for him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie ducked into Miss Fisher’s house after school. Her skirt was hiked up to above her knees and her tie was loose and her hair which she had plaited to appease her teachers into two plats that she had tied around a bun in the nape of her neck but she had pulled the dark strands loose as she had walked and they were now down her back free and clear of any hairpins or tightly coiled designs and she was about to knock on the red door when a hand snuck out and dragged her in the house.

Miss Fisher peered around the edge of the door looking around like she expected an assassin to come around the corner with a blade and Ellie had barely enough time to ask what the hell she thought she was doing when the door had shut on them and she was suddenly aware of another man watching her. There was something about him that made her pause. He was dark and dangerous but in an impossibly sexy way even though he was probably the same age—if not older than her father.

There was a pause where she stood there and then there he turned to Miss Fisher and started talking in a low voice that had an accent that made her suddenly feel like she had stepped into some sort of world that had long been gone and she remained close to the door hiding in the shadows and listened to the plan that sounded more and more of a nightmare with each word uttered.

They may be a point to her father’s mutterings she thought to herself. How Miss Fisher had gotten herself into this mess she had no idea. But, Ellie looked at the tall dark handsome stranger with the eyes that held so much pain and yet so much love for something—weather it was an ideal or a patriotic love or some kind of desire for life—but no—she was getting too poetic even for herself, the man however was look at Miss Fisher in a way that Ellie almost understood. It was lust and desire and Miss Fisher was certainly not defecting away from that look. Indeed if Ellie was reading the signs right it looked like Miss Fisher and the Latvian anarchist were lovers.

You had to kind of admire her guts didn’t you?

And that was how Eleanor Robinson found herself onboard for a bank job.

Hugh Collins was also with them and if he had looked terrified before Miss Fisher had turned to her and said “Eleanor. In the car. Now!” In a tone that made Ellie almost run to the car then he looked damn right terrified when he realised his bosses daughter was going along for the ride.

It was just her, the terrified constable, Miss Fisher and the Latvian Anarchist. What a jolly bank robbery this was going to be.

God, she had just told her Dad she was going to be good. And now this.

“Don’t worry” Miss Fisher said when they were at the bank. “I’ll take full responsibility for this. And really. Your father will understand, I couldn’t leave you at home what with the Latvians possibly coming back and trying to take the right victim. I had to wrestle with my conscious and besides…you look like a woman who can handle a couple of anarchists.”

Ellie was about to ask her if she had ran mad because she did not feel confident looking around at the anarchist next to her and the terrified policemen and her still in her school uniform but before she could even try and say anything the shooting began.

God her Dad was so going to kill her for this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack Robinson was torn between terror, fury and a deep sense of exasperation. Miss Fisher had saved the bank, Collins had more than earned his moment of glory, Peter the Painter had escaped—again—and Ellie had been involved in a bank robbery.

The second he had entered the bank to find her staring there looking stunned he had crossed the room and pulled her into his arms so tightly it was like he had gotten back from war again and he would never let go of this tiny piece of sanity that had kept him alive in those dark years in the trench.

There was a pause where they clutched at each other and then he kissed her on top of the head pulling back so he could see the damage. There was great smattering of blood on the edge of her school shirt which he suspected would lead to him buying a new one but considering what could have happened he supposed a new shirt was the least of his worries.

Between Ellie and Hugh he got the full story. There had been a Latvian anarchist who had died in Miss Fisher’s arms who had turned on his own course and Dorothy Williams had been kidnapped in response to Miss Fisher being seen in one of the more…darker places of the communist community and his daughter who had gone to see the woman (and why he had given her permission to do that he had no idea—but he knew he was not telling his Ex-Wife anything) and his daughter had been taken (for her own safety apparently) to the bank and had applied pressure to the wound on the now disappeared anarchist while Miss Fisher and Hugh had been in a gunfight.

Oh he was going to need a drink after this.

Ellie’s hands were covered in blood and that was an image that was going to haunt him because there had been enough blood in the war but she was still standing and while she was pale she seemed in control of her faculties and she also seemed to be unharmed.

“Well” Miss Fisher said looking over Hugh getting his shinning moment and Dorothy getting a cup of what he imagined was very sweet strong tea by the over-apologising bank manager. “I suppose that all’s well that ends well”

Jack smiled bitterly. Yes he supposed it was well. The robbery had been adverted and though he did not know it in two days time he would be standing on that very same dock where this whole nightmare had began watching peace take place and telling this woman about his own strike action. But for now he was not in the mood to be forgiving or understanding.

Right now he was a father.

“Miss Fisher. I have come to understand that nothing I do will stop you on your crusade for justice and right now I am too tired to try. But let me make this thing crystal clear. If you ever use my daughter as cannon fodder again I will lock you up and throw away the key and no amount of flirting or pleading or money or social connections will save you then”

He didn’t wait to see the woman he suspected was both his equal and his opposite react to that statement. He didn’t wait to see Hugh turn around his face desperate for approval not from him but from Miss Williams. He turned and wrapped his arm around his daughter and together they walked through the press down the steps and into the sunlight.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also as I always say spelling and grammar are not my strongest suit in terms of writing so any mistakes I do apologise. 
> 
> I will try and update as soon as I am able. See you next time.


	3. Ghosts In This House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack is embroiled with two more cases involving Jewish politics, Chinese opium and a possible ghost. 
> 
> Ellie tries Chinese food for the first time and learns a few things about Miss Fisher that surprises and intrigues her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter, I hope you all enjoy, any historical accuracies I apologise for. 
> 
> I will try and get two more chapters published between now and me starting uni but I can only hope. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine 
> 
> Please Read and Review.

Jack had been right in thinking that Miss Fisher was not going to go away quietly. Hell the war had gone away more quietly than she had arrived. Since the incident at the bank she had also shown up at a crime scene which had involved the local Jewish population. Jack had known that, that particular case was not going to be easy especially as the higher ups in his department had not considered it worth opening after he had arrested the owner of the bookshop. He supposed he would admit grudgingly that if it had not been for Miss Fisher’s dogged pursuits then he would have sent the wrong woman to be hanged. It wasn’t that he wasn’t good at his job it was that he could only piss off so many people high in his career and still have one.

Anyhow they had not spoke about the whole bank job with the still missing Latvian, the fact that Dot Williams had been held hostage and how Hugh Collins had gotten a date out of that he was still not sure but they had not spoken about how he had responded to a shots fired to see his daughter standing there with blood on her hands and tights and a slightly stunned look in her eye that he had seen in young coppers all too much.

The problem was that Ellie had been fine with it. She had said that Miss Fisher had yanked her down beneath the table as soon as the gunmen had come in and she had not seen any shooting other than Peter the Painter falling down next to her.

“Honestly” she said as she worked her way through a bowl of pasta at the Italian restaurant. Concetta had been too much a mafioso’s wife to pass comment on the dried blood on his daughters hand, she had needed feeding and they were in the woman’s small kitchen so nobody could see them. “All I did was put pressure on the wound I promise you. And I only did that because he told me. The next thing I know he and Miss Fisher are kissing and then he’s standing and he’s gone. And she only took me along for the ride Dad because she thought the Latvians would come back.

He knew why she had done it and If Jack had been an impartial detective then he would have admitted that her plan had sense but he wasn’t. He was the father of the girl who had been in the bank and he was the father before he was the detective everytime and she had still brought his daughter along to something that she had known was going to be a gunfight.

And to make matters worse when the adrenaline hit Ellie which it did like Jack knew he would she had thrown up her pasta and then burst into tears not knowing why she was sobbing her body only just having stopped hearing bullets whiz through her ears.

“Sorry” she said after she had come out of the bathroom and Jack who had perhaps not had the most affectionate father himself had opened up his arms and allowed her to rest her head upon his shoulder.

“Only natural” he said and he was right about it. “To be honest I suppose if you didn’t have a problem with what you saw today I would be more worried”

Ellie smiled and then leaned her head against his shoulder and curled her legs under her. She was fine the next day but Jack still couldn’t get the images out of his mind. The dreams…or the nightmares himself mostly swung between those memories in the trenches in France to his daughter covered in blood.

Either way forced politeness was all he could manage right about now as one case moved to another. To make matters worse he had to sit down with Miss Fisher at an performance of Ruddygore. Considering Jack would rather rehash his marriage than go to the opera he was not amused. He spent the first three songs plotting in is head about all the ways he was going to punish Collins for this.

The problem was he did not have to wait long in his polite isolation.

Because where Miss Fisher went it was clear that there was always a murder.

Of course one of the actors had to collapse.

Jack who had been bent over the body was still taking in the stench of whiskey which was so powerful he was almost overcome by it when he heard the manager of the stage Phryne Fisher’s friend say very clearly that he thought it was a ghost.

“A ghost?” Hugh almost shouted and Jack had to close his eyes and then open them again looking up to the heavens as not for the first time in his life he wondered what on earth he would have had to done to deserve this. Ghosts…

Thankfully Miss Fisher seemed just as sceptical as he was something which Jack was eternally grateful for despite everything. There was a pause where she caught his eye and he had to look away least he started grinning like an idiot whenever he caught her eye. Sometimes she was as infectious as she was infuriating.

She caught up with him of course as he was searching the backstage prop boxes to see if there was anything that might double up as a weapon. He was pretty sure that poison was the motive here but he was sure as he was standing not going to start anything concrete before he had the coroner’s report and considering how the coroner at City South Police Station only liked to work when his liver allowed (plus it was a weekend and the pubs were still open) it he was expecting it to be a while before he got any results.

“Can we talk?”

“Miss Fisher I have no doubt that you have been hired to investigate a ghost—” and he had to hide his eyeroll at the very thought of a ghost prowling a gala production—unless of course it had come down from heaven or up from hell to yell at them to stop the dreadful music.

“And I have no doubt that you will also try and solve this murder as well need I remind you that I am the one with the badge”

“I didn’t meant to talk to you about that” she said rolling her eyes and stopping her high heeled foot so he had no choice but to stop and look at her. “I wanted to talk to you about Eleanor”

“Ellie” Jack corrected. Nearly ten years of knowing his daughters preferred moniker to her name had taught him to know it off by heart when someone talked to him about her. She had only ever been Eleanor to her grandfather, her headmistress and other figures in the legal professions when she had been asked questions that one time about the divorce. Of course she was Eleanor on all of the legal documents but she was to close friends, family and much of the general people she came into contact with Ellie Robinson.

“Ellie. Is she…well I’ve not seen her since that…incident at the bank and I was just wondering if she…hated me?”

Was he imagining things or was that a twinge of guilt in Miss Fishers tone?

“Hate you?” he asked raising an eyebrow. “No. Heavens no. Miss Fisher. She thinks your one of the most interesting people she’s ever met”

It would have been so much easier he mused if his daughter had really not liked Miss Fisher. So much easier.

Miss Fisher clapped her hands and then gave a little pout. “Honestly Jack if I’m to call you by your given name, your daughter by her preferred shortened name then the least you can do is give me the common courtesy of being addressed by my own name when were together and talking as friends. My name is Phryne.”

Uh…what was he supposed to do with that? It had been a long time he thought wryly since he had been on first name bases with a woman. He had been a married man for nearly sixteen years and it was not like there had been a lot of women before Rosie. There had been her and that was it. When a woman looked at him with that half interested, half calculated look then he wasn’t sure what to do with himself.

Jack took a deep breath and looked around playing for time. However Miss Fisher…no…Phryne seemed to understand or at the very least didn’t press the open wound that was still his marriage with her heeled boot to see weather or not it bled for which he was extremely relieved.

“Look” she said finally. “Let me take Ellie out to dinner. As an apology for you know…nearly getting her killed. You can come to if you like, as a matter of fact I imagine it might help with the case if I choose the right place. And if your worried I’ll bring Dot. She’s not going to be involved in anything like that bank job anytime soon I can assure you. She’s only just managed to get her hands to stop shaking whenever someone mentions it”

Unless she was planning to get them a window seat in the next life Jack was unsure about that but he kept his mouth shut and tried with all of his might to will away the headache that he could feel coming on. Again.

Sometimes it was like Rosie had never left him for another man. It was like they were still married and he was forced to deal with her all over again. While they might be different when it comes to many things Jack knew they could be twins in their determination to see things through to the end.

He realised that she was still waiting for an answer and seeing no way out of this once word got back to Ellie—and considering Hugh was in earshot there was no way she wouldn’t (girl could play him like a fiddle—Jack was one day going to have to sit down with that man and teach him how to lie to women otherwise with Miss Fisher there was no chance that he could get any work done) he decided to allow it. And if Dot was going to be there…well he supposed that was better than nothing.

“Fine, I’ll send her around to yours tonight. But so help me Miss Fisher…”

He let the end of his sentence hang and judging by the small smile he rather thought that perhaps this time for once Miss Fisher had gotten the message.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well…this was…different.

Ellie was sitting on the floor in her decent blue dress and boots digging into her upper legs with two sticks in her hand that apparently constituted knives and forks and she was being offered something that looked…a little bit strange.

Miss Fisher had told her that it was a prawn dumpling. Apparently during her time in China she had forgotten that a prawn was a shrimp here until Dot told Ellie in a hushed whisper. Eventually Ellie decided to stab the thing with one stick and eat at it like something skewered on the end of the stick.

It wasn’t bad.

Miss Fisher for the most part seemed to be battling some brutal looking Chinese woman over her son who was desperately interested in her and then when the old woman finally left the conversation turned to opium. Now Ellie might be liberal in some of her views but she was also the daughter of a cop and she had to draw the line somewhere. Judging by the look of scandalized horror on Dot’s face she agreed with her.

“Miss Fisher…” she began before the woman whipped out a pipe and suggest they all have a puff. “Not that I mean to be rude but…why am I here?”

“What…oh…this is so I can tell your Dad that I can spend time with you as friends without involving you in a crime”

“Friends?”

“Yes” Miss Fisher looked up from where she was rooting around in her handbag pulling out a handle of petty cash like it was nothing. “Friends. I’d like to think that’s what we are.”

Ellie found herself oddly touched by that statement. She had not met many women like Miss Fisher and she had certainly never been friends with them.

There was a pause where she sat there and then she nodded and wondered if her Dad would be such a good copper as to have something actually Australian cooking for her when she got in. The company was pleasant but she was beginning to think that perhaps Chinese food did not agree with her.

Miss Fisher offered to drive her home and it was only when Ellie got to the front of her house that she realised that something must have dropped out of Miss Fisher’s bag into the open bag that she had. It was an old one and the clasp was broken and Miss Fisher threw around that beaded bag more than Ellie would have ever done so she was thinking that it not that hard for something to fall in and also that it was highly probable that she had not had her golden pistol in her handbag.

She used the keys to let herself into her house.

“Good evening?” came a voice to herself and she jumped clutching both her bag and the item that she had realised was not hers. Shoving it back into the bag and fully intending to give it back the next day she turned to see her Dad sitting in front of the fire reading the newspaper (meaning he was peering through the curtains to see if Miss Fisher was driving at the correct speed limit no doubt)

“Not really. I mean the company was nice. Miss Fisher wants to be my friend and…well that’s great I suppose. But I don’t think Chinese food agrees with me. It’s…well I had to sit on the floor for a start and I don’t have to tell you how hard that is in high heeled boots”

Her Dad nodded the corner of his mouth twitching upwards being the only thing that distracted her from his serious expression. Finally he lowered his newspaper.

“Good thing I have vegetable soup on the stove for you isn’t it?”

“Dad” Ellie said in all seriousness “If I am ever rude to you again…”

“Yeah I’ll know my life is back to normal” her Dad said laughing. “Go and fix yourself a bowl with some bread and I’ll take a scotch while your in there. You can eat and then tell me all about what it was like on the darker side of town.” He looked Ellie thought in the light years younger than when she had seen him married to her mother. In those final months of her parents marriage she had never seen either one of them smile.

She ducked into the kitchen and routed through her bag to find what belonged to Miss Fisher. She nearly dropped her bag.

It was contraception.

Ellie let out a surprised and somewhat embarrassing giggle. She had heard of methods such as these. She had read the magazine’s hidden under her mother’s bed and she supposed there might be a reason why she was an only child but she had never asked.

Miss Fisher used family planning!

The Latvian, the Chinese man, the Russian dancer when they had first met. Holy shit.

Damn she thought grinning in spite of herself stuffing the thing back into her bag. She had thought that she had known women like Miss Fisher. Truth was she had never known _any_ woman like Miss Fisher. And the more she found out the more she was liking the ‘Lady Detective’. She heard her Dad stand up and she tried to keep her face smooth and her bag hidden. She would return this the next day and ask if it was true what Dot had told her about this ‘Dorothea’s Ghost.’ Until then she was going to have to imagine what else this woman was capable off and just what it was going to mean for her and her father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There Is some brief mention of 1920s birth control in this chapter. So please be aware. I am just covering all bases. 
> 
> And i will try and publish as soon as i can. Enjoy.


	4. The War At Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie returns Miss Fishers ‘Product’ and discovers another thing Miss Fisher (Call me Phryne!) has done and learns about the Great War as her Dad and Phryne are embroiled in a wartime mystery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter, I am hoping to have one more posted before I go back to uni and time management becomes difficult. The next chapter does have a bit more action in it but I wanted to focus this chapter on Jack and Phryne and the war and the aftermath in which Paris really did come alive because of the people there and all the cultures clashing. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just this plot. 
> 
> Please Read and Review and let me know waht you think 
> 
> Again spelling and grammar are not my strong suit and any historical accuracy i apologise for.

It was honestly pathetic sometimes. She had kept the contraception in her bag for two days and she blushed like some kind of naïve kid whenever she looked at it. She was entirely sure that her Dad suspected something was going on as well because whenever he walked near her school bag she got tense. Explaining that she had been in Chinese restaurant which she was sure doubled up as an opium den and then been driven home by a woman who had indulged a bit too much in the champagne and had a gun in her handbag only to find that the contraception she was probably planning to use when the head of the opium den came round had ended up in her bag was not something she was particularly looking forwards to explain.

But it was pathetic she thought to herself. She was a woman—well—she was very nearly a woman, certainly she’d had her period which must count for something (or it had before she had turned fourteen anyway) and she had sanitary napkins hidden away in the back of her dresser draw. Ellie also considered herself a modern woman to boot and by that count she had, no issue with woman using contraception for their own needs but she had never read about it and more to the point she had never seen one up close.

Hell she didn’t even know where the hell you bought the things from.

Nonetheless this did belong to Miss Fisher and Ellie was obligated (because she had been raised right for most of her life) to give the…thing…back to it’s rightful owner.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t constantly aware of it whenever her school bag was in her sight.

Her Dad thankfully got embroiled in the case of a hit and run which according to Burt and Cec might have been something more and was too preoccupied to notice that Ellie had not lent Jane her history book because she and Jane did not even go to the same school. But that had been her excuse and she was sticking to it, thank you very much.

Mr Butler, Miss Fisher’s butler opened the back door for her and then before she could say anything she was presented with a glass of lemonade and a slab of chocolate cake in the parlour before Miss Fisher eventually was woken up and came downstairs. Ellie wondered what it was like to own a big house by herself and wake up at eleven AM every day. If she ever got rich enough to own a house like this and work for leisure then she was going to wake up whenever she wanted, and she was going to have the luxury of lots of lovers and not care about the public consequences. Perhaps she could even convince her Dad of that.

The getting up at eleven thing. Not the lovers.

She took a bite of cake.

“Ellie” came a voice to her right and she saw Miss Fisher bound down the stairs in white pants and a blue shirt and beaded cardigan that Ellie knew would cost more than six months of her Dad’s salary. She stood up and was suddenly aware that her dark hair needed washing and that there was a stain on her skirt and she was aware that she was clutching the bag at her shoulder as if it was her lifeline.

“Can I help you with something?” Miss Fisher asked leaning forwards and allowing her cheek to rest against Ellie’s for a second. There was a pause when they pulled apart where she stood there and then she realised that Miss Fisher was actively waiting for her to speak.

“Do you remember the time that you drove me home from the Chinese place and you err…you had had a bit too much to drink?”

“Possibly why?”

“Err…this fell out of your bag and into mine” And with that she held out the contraception. Miss Fisher stared at it for a second and then grinned. “Oh good. I ordered new ones but if I have a back up until they arrive then that’s something.”

She looked up then as if aware that Ellie couldn’t keep her shocked eyes off her. “Oh dear have I shocked you?”

“I just…didn’t…I never…I haven’t seen someone use it before” she finished lamely.

“No” Miss Fisher said finally as if they were having a conversation about the weather, she moved over to the drinks table and came back with a scotch for herself and what looked like a gin and tonic for Ellie who took it. “I imagine not many girls at your school are thinking about sex let alone taking the precautions. If I ever give you any advice Ellie let it be this—if the man doesn’t wait for you to use protection then you get the hell out there and you find someone who will—trust me.”

Ellie didn’t know what to say to that so she drank. The gin burned the back of her throat but it wasn’t too terrible. As she cast her eyes around the room to think of something to say she caught sight of a painting half covered in brown paper. It looked as if Mr Butler had been wrapping it or at least getting ready to wrap it.

Suddenly she felt like she was going to laugh and she didn’t know why.

“Is that you?” she asked finally. “In that portrait…err…naked?”

“Yes” said Miss Fisher putting down her drink and moving so she could pick up the painting. She looked at it in a way that made Ellie think she was rather proud. “I got it done in France and bought it back from a dear friend. It was after the war you know and I needed the money. So I drank a whole lot of champagne, may have indulged a bit in a snort or two of cocaine and got naked”

The way she was saying all of this was astonishing. Ellie had never met a woman who had been as open about her body and what she did with it as she had done with Miss Fisher. She wasn’t sure if this was an eye-opening experience or something that made her want to lock herself in her room and never come out again.

Miss Fisher perhaps caught the expression on her face because she laughed a little.

“I suppose you think I’m a shameless whore? You’ve not been the first to say it I suppose”

“I don’t think that Miss Fisher”

“Call me Phryne honestly, I think sometimes your worse than your father. Anyway, this is going back to the painters wife. Give her something to look at”

And then she winked at Ellie who took another large gulp of gin and tonic.

“What did you do in the war?” she asked as Miss Fisher put the painting down and motioned that she should sit down.

“I was an ambulance nurse in France. I had been living in England when the war broke out in 1914 and I enlisted when the first casualty report came in. I was a nurse and I…occasionally lent my expertise to the flying corps once we hit the last six months. But I was in France when the war ended and like so many Allied soldiers weather or not they were British, American or Australian had no way of getting a letter home, my family had no way of getting money to me and my unit was disbanded until the men had gone home. I was destitute in Paris like so many other woman and resorted to the one thing woman have been doing since antiquity-my body. Painting was as far as it went of course but…I have to admit it was rather liberating”

Liberating Ellie supposed was one word for it. But she had to admit that she could see Miss Fisher—no Phryne’s point. She could understand what it must have been like to be in a city like Paris.

“Is Paris very romantic?”

“Oh yes. Lots of mad, bad parties, drinking, men who make you smoulder from the inside. It was even worse back then of course because the war had been won. France had been a battleground for four years and even the people in Paris knew about it. Everyone was mad with victory, with joy, with love and with life. You lived like it was your last day because for so many people it could have been”

Ellie sighed thinking about it. It did sound romantic in a way. Everyone drunk on life and peace and freedom and things that might have been scandalous considered the norm.

God she wanted to go to Paris. It sounded so…dreamy…

Of course there was the issue of money and stuff like that but she supposed that there was very little she could do about that right now.

“It sounds….”

“It wasn’t romantic…” Phryne said as if she was thinking what she was thinking. “Paris is I suppose. But Paris during the war wasn’t romantic. God knows war certainly isn’t”

Ellie nodded taking another sip of her gin. She barely tasted it as she put it down. If she didn’t stop now she’d be half gone by the time she got back home and the last thing she wanted was for this budding…well…whatever it was with Miss Fisher to end because her Dad found out about contraception and gin all in the afternoon.

“When did you first need…err…” she gestured at the contraception and Miss Fisher’s red painted mouth curled around her glass.

“I was eighteen. And I was not what you would call in a good place. I grew up poor and we only got rich in 1915 when in the first year of the war my father lost all of his relatives and inherited the title” She rolled her eyes.

“I was eighteen, living in England and I don’t even remember his name. It was over in a heartbeat and it wasn’t anything special. And I wouldn’t recommend it.” She fixed Ellie with a look that said she understood exactly what she was thinking.

“The first time you take man to your bed it should be someone you love, regardless of weather or not your married. Then you should go to your mother and she will put you on protection if she doesn’t then you come to me and I know a woman who is more secretive than a spy in wartime”. She winked and Ellie giggled unable to stop herself.

“The case your father and I are working on” Phryne said as she continued to speak over Ellie’s giggles. “Involves Burt and Cec and a painting in wartime France and yards and yards of Red Tape. It’s nothing dangerous, at least not to him”

Ellie relaxed her muscles leaning back into the silk of the chair.

Phryne smiled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He had kissed her. The first woman he had kissed in nearly sixteen years and it had been her. Miss Fisher. They had been sat in a café that resembled the ones in France that he had never been able to go in. Many places in France had been happy to feed the Australian soldiers, hell many of them had even heard of Australia and most soldiers himself included had been grateful for a hot meal and warm bed come the end of the war. Even now he couldn’t go near onion soup because it reminded him of France sitting there covered in dirt and shaking with the aftershocks of a nightmare when a woman had pressed a bowl of soup and bread into his hands and he had ate it like it was his last meal.

He had never gotten an opportunity to try snails. Those high end places had never done much for him. He had wanted nothing more than a hot meal, a hot bath and a place to sleep before he had been sent home and they had taken their sweet time with that as well.

And the wars never ended did they? He came out of one war back to the police and back to his marriage and he papered over the cracks of his life and his marriage. There was a pause where he took a mouthful of scotch and tried not to see that picture of Burt and Cec and their mates as they stood in Paris in uniform like he had done, jubilant that they had won like he had been and unsure of what the fuck they were going to do now.

He was sat at his table again as he had been the last time he had been thinking about the war. He didn’t try to think about it too often but it was like a book that you couldn’t throw out, everything just kept coming back whenever you least expected it. It wasn’t even the kiss that was keeping him up (though he had no doubt that he was going to have to mull that one over for many days to come) it was the memories that came with a case light this.

“Hey” Ellie said coming through the door. She had been at Miss Fisher’s and then she had gone for dinner at her Grandfather’s her mother absent. She was dressed in a green silk shirt with long sleeves and a tie of green silk around her waist and a black skirt that curved around her body and ended at her calves. Her hair was loose and she was in high heeled black shoes that Jack supposed she had guilt tripped Rosie into getting for her because they did things to her legs that no father wanted to imagine. She looked like a normal kid and in that moment Jack could only pray that she never knew what it was to go to war and not know if you were going to come back.

“Did you close the case” she said sitting down next to him.

“Hmm? Oh yeah we did. We err…we did…” he finished lamely.

Ellie shot him another look that said she knew something was up quite clearly but she didn’t want to ask him about it. His daughter was so freakishly intuitive sometimes it was like he was sitting across the table from his soon to be ex-wife.

“Bad case?” she asked. Jack shrugged. “Miss Fisher told me when I dropped by that it was about the war and her painting”

Jack laughed. “You saw that?” he asked and then he laughed again. “Of course you did. Yeah…the man wanted that painting. He was an old lover of Miss Fisher’s apparently and he was wanted for murder in France over that painting…” he laughed again. “She does seem to draw quite the crowd”

Ellie nodded. “She told me that, when she was in France she did the painting. She said everyone was so alive after the war that nobody cared. That the world would never be like that again and she took advantage of it. And I think I’d like to go and see Paris one day.”

Jack snorted into his scotch again.

“Paris is a good place. I never got to see much of it. But it was a stunning place at night.”

“What did you do? During the war?” Ellie asked finally. Jack looked at her then wondering how to explain even to a sixteen year old what it was to hunker down in the wet mud and then walk towards certain death and hope against hope that he would survive. He didn’t know how to tell her about what had happened and how he had sat shaking for hours after each attempt. He looked at Ellie and then decided to go with the easier version. One day she would ask and he would give her an answer even though he imagined that she would never really know. And that was a good thing. After all what was the point of fighting in the ‘War to End All Wars’ if it really wasn’t the end?

“I was a solider in the trenches. I rose up through the ranks, didn’t have to lead any of them through No-Man’s Land thank God but…but I struggle sometimes with the memories. And I don’t ever want to talk about them. Maybe one day”

Ellie stared at him for a second longer seemingly at war with herself.

“Miss Fisher uses contraception” she said finally. “I saw it”

Jack grinned. Honestly he wasn’t surprised. “Forward thinking woman” he said toasting his daughter with his empty glass. She too he suspected was another forward thinking woman.

Ellie’s whole face split into a grin then and she laughed tilting her head back against the chair and laughing and the sound of his daughter’s laugh cleared some of the fogs of war that had clouded his head. This was what had kept him sane during those long nights. This was what had kept him alive when all he had wanted to do was give into the exhaustion and fall out and lie there like so many men who couldn’t fight anymore.

This girl sitting here in front of him whose picture he had clutched to him that was still in his wallet and who was sitting here in front of him alive and safe and happy.

“Don’t get any ideas” he said finally. “At least until your married to a man—you know when your pushing mid-thirties”

Ellie grinned again standing up. She had gotten taller he noticed. The girl was slowly becoming a woman. Oh now he wanted another drink before that road became to dark and twisty to go down. He opened his mouth to tell her perhaps that he had kissed her new friend but the look on her face was so warm and happy and his own thoughts were so confusing about the damn thing that he didn’t have the heart to drag her into his mess. Besides tonight was not the night to think about that. Tonight was not the night to think. Tonight was the night to forget.

“I’m going to have an early night” he said and then he stood on aching limbs and made it to his bedroom leaving his daughter sitting there her eyes and her thoughts on her future and his rather firmly focused on his past.

The wars at home indeed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you are, please let me know what you think and I will try and get the next chapter up for you as soon as possible. 
> 
> Enjoy


	5. Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Jack helps Miss Fisher on a case concerning teenage girls he becomes increasingly worried about his own daughter. He and Phryne talk a little about the war meanwhile Phryne comes to a realisation about her feelings for Jack-she might actually have them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter. This one again doesn't have much episode interaction as I only use them as guidelines but it does deal with something equally important-the realisation that Phryne might have feelings for Jack which I believe she knew about long before he started having feelings for her. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Again grammer is not my strongest suit so any inaccuracies i apologise. 
> 
> And let me know what you think

A week or two had passed since the case that had dragged up more memories than Jack would care to admit. He had finally managed to sleep a full night the night he had finally arrested the murder of Miss Lavender who turned out to be an Italian traitor who was a deserter on top of murderer. He was the kind of man Jack thought who had deserved to get hit with a bullet in the war when so many men who had gone to fight for their country with pride were still over there decomposing in the mud.

As soon as he was safely behind bars and he went home to his house to find his daughter curled up in her big double bed with a book held loosely in her hand he found he could sleep again without the memories of France in his head keeping him up. And if he cried a little bit that night thinking back over what he had come home to when so many other men had not then that was between him and God and nobody else.

The next morning it was buisness as usual for him and his daughter. She kissed him goodbye as she headed off to school and he found himself thinking over the breakfast dishes that his daughter was soon of the age where she was going to have boys hanging around her like flies on honey. But he still had a hard time getting his brain around it. For him his little girl would always just be that, the four year old who had clung to her mother as Rosie had, had to patiently explain to her who this strange man in uniform was and why he was here.

God somethings never did end did they? He was never going to forget what had happened over there, Jack had long since reconciled himself to that but he had to admit that when confronted with that opportunity to arrest a man that had probably been responsible for the deaths of his fellow soldiers then…well…he was glad that he was able to sleep at night this time.

Miss Fisher had assisted (he was beginning to see no end to that woman’s version of help when he was on a case though he had to admit that some of her methods were able to help him out from time to time) and then they had parted ways with no mention of the kiss beyond his somewhat hamstringed apologies. He had not told Ellie about it and considering that he had not heard about it from his daughter he was willing to bet his next pay packet on her not telling her either.

He was called to the beach one day when the sun was weaker than usual but the foreshore was still alive with people frolicking around in the sea. Jack winced as sand got all over his shoes. He had never liked the sand in the same way he never really liked mud. It was everywhere, it got everywhere and he was unsure weather or not he would ever not feel that way about sand and mud and rain beating down on him until he was cold to the bone and felt like he had never been warm.

However the beach was still the beach and he had had long summers both before the way and after his with wife and his daughter in love and pretending that everything was ok in equal measure. He was sure that he was not the only one. Hugh on the other hand loved the beach, Jack knew this because he had been told that nearly three times in the car as Collins had drove them to the seaside.

Miss Fisher was there her arm around her ward Jane, she was with another girl who he didn’t recognise and another one who he knew as Rose Weston of Weston’s Department Stores. The dead girl had clearly been pushed into the sea if the footprint he could see on her back was anything to go by and she had drowned as she had desperately tried to fight her way to the surface. He paused looking at her feeling a pang of sadness that came whenever he looked at a victim who had her whole life ahead of them. This one however was particularly sadder because later on as she looked over Kitty’s file he noted that she was only two years older than his own daughter.

Jack shook his head thinking hard and trying to shake away the cobwebs of bad memories. This was not his daughter. Ellie was at school and the fact of the matter was that she was fine, she was not facedown in the foreshore and she was not a flower girl for the mayor. Even if Rosie had wanted that (and George would have done) there was no way that Ellie was going to prance around with a crown of flowers on her head. She was way too much Rosie Sanderson’s daughter (even if she didn’t want to admit it) for that to work.

“Are you alright?” said a voice from the doorway. He looked up to see Miss Fisher—Phryne watching him from the doorway her hat in her hand and her head tilted to the side. She had a rather strange look on her face, while he would admit she clearly cared about the dead that she investigated experience had generally taught Jack that she enjoyed teasing him somewhat and the fact that she had now stopped doing that just as he had gotten used to it was too much of a roundabout turn even for him.

“I’m fine” he said waving a hand in the air to show that he was completely fine and not at all trapped in memories of pregnant eighteen years olds who had the same dark hair as his daughter and probably the same artistic romantic temperament if the statement Marie gave was anything to go by.

Phryne Fisher shot him a look that told him quite clearly she didn’t believe a word that he had said and then she preceded to sit down in his chair opposite his desk so it became clear that whatever it was that was bothering her was not too serious. Instead he looked down at his file least he get distracted by her…again…

“Can I help you with something?”

“Is everything with Ellie alright?” she asked suddenly.

Jack looked at her in surprise. He had no idea where she was going with this conversation but if there was a problem with his daughter that he needed to know about he was damn well going to ask her.

“As far as I am aware she’s fine. Why? Has she said something to you?”

Phryne paused and then shook her head.

“She was over at my house the week you kissed me” she said in a very matter of fact tone. “I didn’t tell her anything if that’s what your worried about but she was asking a lot of questions about the war, after the war, life in general, you know…what it was like being a single girl and a guy in Paris who had just survived death. All those mad, bad parties”

“I do remember a lot of champagne being thrown around” Jack acknowledged with a wry grin. “And a lot of men hanging around Paris with nothing to do. I wondered why she suddenly had a madcap desire to go to Paris and see the world for herself. She thinks it’s dreamy”

“It is. Problem I found is that it was more dreamier post the war than it was any other time. The last time I went it was the same only more people worried about the government and the rise of the ‘Reds’ and whatnot. Had none of the magic post the war.”

“Living through the war had given it a certain charm” Jack said wryly. “I suppose after all that hell we went through it didn’t matter where we were anything and everything was going to seem dreamy.”

Phryne smiled and then looked out of the window.

“Children” she said finally. “Daughters. My father once said that war was easier than raising daughters though as he has never been a soldier in his entire life I have no idea why he thinks he can promote that statement but there you go. There might be a point to it though, Kitty…pregnant by some older man who kept her in a bathing shed…Rose Weston who I think we both know, knows more than she’s letting on and then there’s Ellie who thinks the world is romantic as many teenagers her age does…the only difference between her and Rose and Kitty Jack is that I fear she has a good had on her shoulders. And then there’s Jane…”

And then she abruptly turned away and looked out of his window as if it held the answers to all her questions. Jack followed her gaze and suddenly realised with an uncomfortable swoop of his stomach that she was not talking about his daughter or Rose or Kitty at this very minute. She had not come to him for help with an investigation or a clue but she had come to him for something else.

“I need you to help me look into someone Jack” she said finally turning away from the window. “It’s about Jane”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phryne looked up as she saw the police car take away the now deposed Mayor. Despite the fact that she had been out of the country when he had been appointed she had never really liked him. It was amazing she thought what a person could see with the benefit of hindsight. She had not taught Ellie Robinson how to defend herself when it had come to those impromptu Judo lessons but she was damn well going to make sure the girl knew how to throw a mean right hook. It was the least that she could do because there were always going to be more unsavoury men out there. For every man in a position of power that they managed to take down there was always going to be one more.

It was a vicious circle she found and one of the oldest kinds that thrived in this world. But she leaned outside of that station on the hood of her car and watched the press swarm around a public figure who had been taken down because of his behaviour and she felt more than a little gratified that she had been a part of the efforts to bring him down. The fact that he had used his own grandson to take the blame—or at least had tried to had not made her like him more and then there was the question of what to do with Rose Weston and her grandfather and she had to admit that that she wanted nothing more to do than to follow that police car and give that man that had ruined so many lives a good kick in the groin.

But she hadn’t come here for that. She had come here to make amends. There was the fact that she had (even though it was months ago) involved Jack’s daughter in a hostage situation with violent soviet communists, there was the birth control debacle that she knew Jack didn’t know about and then to cap matters off there was the fact that she had kissed him and while she didn’t know exactly what her (dare she say it?) friend’s marital situation was she knew enough to know that Ellie’s mother was still alive. And Phryne had done a lot of things but slept with a married man was not one of them and she was certainly not going to start now.

So she had to apologise to Jack and then she had to apologise to his daughter and then she could clean the slate so to speak because there was something about this case that made her feel like there was a sense that everything had to be out in the open.

There was a pause where she stood there and then she saw him coming out of the police station hat in hand. Jack Robinson. She told herself to stop and get a grip and focus on what she had to do. There had been too many ghosts hiding in the back of closets and too many war time heroes and far too many demons in her past that she had, to let go of if she wanted a future here.

Perhaps it was time to tell Jack about Janey, about Foyle…about all of it. She had time. Time to live a life when her sister didn’t have one.

“Jack” she said as she saw the man lean towards his car. “I was wondering if I could catch you.”

Jack turned around to look at her and suddenly the courage to put this relationship in a more professional box failed her. Phryne didn’t understand why (at least not then) but she had never had her courage fail on her like this. She had been born poor, born poorer than most and had only gotten herself into money by sheer luck and a war that nobody could have predicted. She could have easily have been Kitty or Rose selling herself out so that she could have found a place to stay and warm food on the table. She had been born and raised with pretty much nothing but courage at one point and now at the very time she needed it had failed and she suspected that it might have something to do with the need to keep this man in her life.

And his daughter of course but more the man at the minute she suspected. Jane had caused her enough heartache for one day she wasn’t sure if she could or even wanted to add another child to that mad mix of emotions, not that Ellie was a child in the way Jane was. She was a teenager and that in her opinion was even worse.

“Miss Fisher” Jack said in that polite tone that really told her that he was desperate to go home to a hot meal, a hot bath probably, his daughter and a good nights sleep but he was too well raised to say it.

“I was wondering if you and your daughter would like to come to tea on Saturday night. Providing of course that there are no cases in the way.”

What the hell was she doing? Why didn’t she just take her clothes off for him? Well she had done that for more than one man after dinner she supposed but this was different. Jack Robinson she was getting to believe was different.

There was a pause where she stood there trying not to hope against hope that she might actually knew what she was doing.

“Oh err…alright then”

“Splendid” she managed one small smile that was braver by far than she felt and then she was gone back to her car her hands shaking but her head held high and wondering not for the first time in her life just what the hell she had gotten herself into.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there we are, hope you all enjoy. 
> 
> I will try and update as soon i as i can. Feedback is adored and thank you all so much for your comments thus far.


	6. Don't It Just Break Your Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While attempting to help Mac with her case Phryne tells Jack about her sister in an attempt to gain some trust between the two of them. Ellie intercepts some mail and helps Hugh with a question his simple but religious mind is struggling to comprehend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter. I hope you all enjoy this and I have three more chapters left of this season's arc and they all correspond with an episode so the chapters might be shorter but certainly in the last two of the three yet to be published have a lot of action. 
> 
> Also nothing against Hugh or Doctor Mac but this is representation of the attitudes of the 1920s and the religious views of the time. But Hugh is an darling so lets just assume Ellie put him right in the same way Dot did so many times. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Please Read and Review. 
> 
> Also spelling and grammar is not my strongest suit nor is this historical accurate as I would have liked so please keep that in mind.

Ellie had not meant to open the mail but she had seen the name of the firm her mother’s lawyer worked at in the divorce proceedings and for a second there was such a hot swoop of anger in her stomach that made her lean her hand against the sideboard. If her mother was going back on her deal and going to take her father to court for custody (because it wasn’t like there was anything else that he had—she had come from money and she had spent it and she had Ellie’s grandfather to fall back on nine times out of ten) of her despite the promise she had extracted from her then Ellie was going to make her mother pay. She had not forgotten the fact that she was the reason her family had broken up, that she was having an affiar with that creep Sidney Fletcher who put her teeth on edge and the fact that she had asked Ellie to lie to her father about it one too many times.

She flipped open the envelope and read the first few lines. The script was simple it was court date for final signings of the divorce to happen on the first of the next month. She almost collapsed with relief. Thank God that it wasn’t what she had thought it was. There was only so much of this hate that she could stand and she had managed to control her feelings about her mother simply because she didn’t think about her. It was perhaps harsh, but it was true nonetheless.

However she did know that this had to be taken to her father and that school didn’t start for another hour what with her school starting later on a Friday for some reason that Ellie didn’t understand but was pleased either way because she got a lie in for at least another forty minutes. Especially as summer was soon going to be over.

She nabbed herself a piece of toast as she left the house and walked to the station only to find one of the junior constables who looked almost like he was her age tell her, her father and constable Collins had gone to a crime scene at the local factory. Ellie checked her watch and then decided that she might as well give it to him there. To be honest it was half calculation and half curiosity. She knew well enough to know that the factory was on her way to school and that she was already running a bit behind schedule and she was also curious at what case her Dad (and undoubtedly Miss Fisher) was working that had pulled him out of bed before she got up on a Friday.

She climbed the steps to the factory floor and only just managed to get out of the way of Hugh Collins who despite not seeing her (or anyone she suspected for that matter) ran past her so that he vomit, away from a crime scene. Ellie wrinkled her nose and carried on up the stairs praying that somebody would clean that up before she had to go back down them again.

Her father was in a conversation with Miss Fisher and another woman who she recognised vaguely as the Lady Doctor who had been at Phryne’s house more often that not and who she knew was one of the only female surgeons in city if not in the state. Both looked paler than normal face powder allowed but Phryne flashed her a smile and Ellie was suddenly very aware that tomorrow they were supposed to be having dinner at that big red house with all it’s occupants.

Yeah she suspected that wasn’t going to happen now.

Of course the second Phryne saw her standing there her Dad turned around hat still on his head and then rolled his eyes leaving Miss Fisher standing there and crossing the room in three long strides, gripping her by the upper arm and taking her away from what looked like a pair of women’s shoes that were scattered too one side and covered in blood to boot.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. Ellie knew he wasn’t really angry with her but she could tell by the tightness of his mouth that whatever this case was or whatever had happened to the owner of those woman’s shoes had shook him to his very core.

“You got a letter that I didn’t want to leave at the prescient and that I certainly didn’t want to leave at home for you to come back too…it’s from Mother’s lawyer”

Her Dad stilled for a second shock wiping away his darker look and replacing it with something that resembled shock and more than a little pain—If Ellie had doubts that her father was finding it difficult adjusting to being single again after a nearly seventeen year marriage there was the proof right in front of her and she had to grit her teeth least she say something that she regretted later.

The benefit of hindsight and all that.

“What does he want?” he asked

“Setting a date” she replied as she passed the letter to him. He took it off her as if it was a poisonous spider and then he stuffed it into his pocket without reading it.

“You did good El…but you need to go to school.”

“What happened?” she asked jerking her head at the blood that was dried and sticking all alongside the iron rods that made up the factory railings. Her father shook his head.

“Nothing that you want to see” he said. “And nothing that I want you to see either. Trust me on that, get to school and I will tell you all when I get back if you want—avenge some of that burning curiosity that I know you have”

There was a pause where she stood there taking in both his expression and the knowledge that she really couldn’t be late for school because she had English first and her teacher and Ellie…did not get on in any way, shape or form.

“Ok” she admitted conceding defeat. “But ask her if she still wants us to come round tomorrow because…well…you know…”

She didn’t want to say that she had actually been looking forwards to it but by the small smile she got in response she suspected that she might not be the only one who had been looking forwards to dinner with Miss Fisher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After school, and at some point the following day (having gotten nothing out of her father the night before) and weighed down with a detention for being late and an act to analyse of Hamlet for Monday morning as another kind of punishment Ellie opened the door to the prescient to find Hugh Collins practically hiding behind his desk looking very hot under the collar and the sounds of raised voices that she immediately identified as her father and Miss Fisher.

Hugh smiled at her ruefully and then dislodged his tea cup. Fumbling he bent to retrieve it and she looked around wondering briefly if he was always going to be like that among women because while Dot Williams might for all she knew be the definition of a saint there was only going to be so much that a woman could put up with.

“Hi Hugh” she said brightly deciding it might be better for all if she ignored the fact that he was a cute but somewhat strange person whenever it came to women and flashing her a smile. “I came to see my father but it appears he is occupied”

There was another loud shout of “For the love of God Jack!” from the door and Hugh gulped leaning forwards so that despite the empty room they were whispering.

“We had to arrest Miss Fisher’s friend the Doctor and…well…you can imagine…she’s not exactly pleased with your old man…also the Doctor has been having—inappropriate relations with the victim. They were lovers, but I mean they were both women” And with that he leaned back and if he expected Ellie to loose control and fall over at something as simple as two women loving another.

Ellie blinked and then remembered with a jolt that this was 1925 and Hugh was a good protestant boy who had been raised going to church with his mother and father and all his other siblings. She on the other hand had been raised by a copper turned soldier turned copper again and a woman who had been more of a bohemian and a career woman than anything else and she was decidedly not shocked.

In fact she was more amused than anything.

“Hugh” she said finally. “There’s nothing wrong with love, in fact after the war you’d think the more love the better”

There was a pause where Hugh gazed at her as if she had confessed her deepest desire to become an exotic dancer.

“But Miss Robinson…it’s…the bible…well…”

“Hugh” Ellie said sternly. “Love one another as I have loved you remember, or something like that either way. If the good Doctor loves women then she loves women. God knows in my book there are worse crimes in the world…you know…like murder…the kind you are employed to solve”

Hugh gazed at her for a second and then the door opened and Miss Fisher stormed out with her father following who looked rather tired as if this conversation had drained him even more than his upcoming divorce drained him. Ellie watched him with concern for a second as Miss Fisher swept to the door in a swishing of feathers that were attached to the cardigan that she was wearing—Ellie suspected that there was more on her back in that moment than a poor family from Collingwood could afford in a year.

“Ellie” she said whirling around so that Ellie who had been leaning against the desk jumped looking at her. “I expect too see you tonight at eight thirty. Hopefully we should have solved the case by then but please be advised that your father doesn’t have to come with you” and with that she swept from the building as if the very walls had personally offended her.

There was a pause where she stood there and then she turned to her father who sighed and then winked in her direction. Ellie grinned and Hugh perhaps not realising that it was a moment between father and daughter winked at her smiling. Ellie resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she caught sight of the expression. There were bigger things to worry about—at least to her.

What did you wear when you went to dinner at Phryne Fishers house?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all it was a good day. There was a murderer behind bars and more to the point the innocent woman he had locked up was free and in the clear so as far as he was concerned there was no harm done. Of course Miss Fisher’s friend might disagree with him but considering the look that she had given him as she had passed him on the way to the car he concluded that all might be forgiven in time.

Ellie had already arrived, Bert and Cec no doubt picking her up. She was in a silver dress with a bodice and folds of fabric that came to her knee and small straps and her hair was down. Jack was suddenly painfully aware again that the girl who had toddled after him when he had come back from France was gone and their was a woman now who remained with all the desire a teenager had to fall in love and live happily ever after. She was sat chatting with Cec and considering he suspected (though he could never ask) that his daughter political affiliations could rival two warfie’s.

He took the glass of champagne that Mr Butler offered him mentioned that perhaps it might be best for Ellie to stop after one more glass and could he please make sure that Burt didn’t get his daughter drunk simply for the hell of it and then he went into the drawing room where Miss Fisher was stood leaning over the fire her eyes on a letter.

“Jack” she said not looking around and downing her scotch as if it was the last thing that she could reach. “I need your opinion on something”

And then she opened her mouth and told him the story of Murdoch Foyle and her sister.

Jack was silent throughout the whole story thinking. It sounded to him like Foyle was trying to get the upper hand and when he pointed it out her eyes closed as if she was standing there and imagining her sister again in all her childish glory.

There was a long pause where the two of them stood there near the open fire.

“Burn it” Jack said finally. “It might break your heart but he’s got nothing to tell you. In my experience there is nothing that he can offer. This far along into his sentence? He has nothing to offer but hope and that is probably as false as the Commissioners teeth”

Miss Fisher let out a snort her eyes wet and then as if it was costing her dearly she shoved the letter into the fire.

“Good Girl” Jack said softly as if he was talking to Ellie again when she was little. Miss Fisher looked at him and Jack noted her eyes were a very pretty shade of greyish-green. He had to look away.

The door opened and Ellie her hair half pinned back by a silver clip leaving some pouring over her shoulder (and Jack was suddenly very thankful that his daughter was not in the presence of some young man) peered her head round the door.

“Dinner is ready” she said with a wink and then she closed the door on them.

“Come on” Jack said finally holding a hand out. She took it a second later and he felt something when her hand enclosed his that he hadn’t felt in a long time…but no he was imagining things surely. He smiled and Phryne smiled back.

And with that they went into dinner listening to the sounds of laughter blissfully unaware of what was coming their way.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will try and update sooner rather than later so please keep that in mind and I will and publish the next chapter as soon as it is up. 
> 
>  
> 
> Feedback is enjoyed and welcomed.


	7. A Little Devil's Complex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Rosie meet for the first time since their custody agreement to finalise any questions they have before court. Jack must deal with a dirty copper, Phryne with the past and Ellie gets an invitation to a costume party that ends in murder and the beginning of the answer to a decades long question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so this chapter is going up a little bit earlier than usual but I finally got it finished so enjoy. There are two more chapters left on this Season and then we move onto Season 2 and more action and adventure than in Season 1. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Usual rules of spelling, grammar and historical context apply. 
> 
> Feedback is adored.

He would be lying even to himself if he didn’t think anything about what he was going to wear the night before. He would be lying to himself if he had not agonised over what tie had gone with his suit and he supposed he would be lying if he had not checked that his hair was in neat perfection before he had left the house that Saturday morning without telling his daughter where he was going or more importantly who he was meeting. He supposed she might see him gone and wonder but Jack knew his spawn well. Ellie would probably assume he had either gone to Miss Fisher’s place or to the station. She would never have any idea that he had gone to meet her mother for lunch and that was something that Jack was eternally pleased about.

Rosie had rang him and suggested that they meet without their lawyers before the finalisation of the divorce to talk about Ellie. There were two reasons for this Jack supposed. One she had decided to go after custody after all in which he suspected lunch would be rather short and loud and Ellie would probably kill her or two (and what he suspected was the most likely) his soon to be ex-wife had not heard a thing from their daughter since she had come to live with Jack and was finally falling on her pride to find out some information that she could desperately use. Jack who had been on the outside once had agreed out of curiosity and no desire to see Rosie beg him for information on the child that they both loved more than their own life.

But he would be lying to himself if he didn’t stare at himself in the mirror and wonder what the hell someone like Sidney Fletcher had that he didn’t—aside from the money and he knew Rosie well enough to know that it wasn’t that. She was a copper’s daughter too and had grown up on a copper’s salary. George had only climbed the ranks right before the war and they had been married before that. He supposed it had to be something else.

The problem was, was that the question was not what it had been several months ago when he had looked at his daughter and his ex and her new boytoy and wondered what it could take to get Rosie back. Jack supposed now that finally he understood and accepted that not only did he have a chance to do that but he didn’t really want to.

All in all it was a sobering experience.

Rosie was sat there looking around the café of her choosing. There was a pause where she sat there and looked at him and then she stood up. She offered her cheek to kiss and Jack remembering that not only did they share a child they had both agreed when they had gone to the courts they would keep this divorce as amicable as possible kissed her back and then sat down with her so that the rather awkward question of precedence was avoided. Rosie had ordered coffee and pancakes and Jack ordered the steak and eggs because he was hungry and if Sidney was picking up the bill then he was damn well gonna have steak for breakfast and judging by the smile on his soon to be ex wife’s face she understood exactly why he was doing that.

“I want to know how she’s doing” she said finally watching as Jack added liberal amounts of sugar to his coffee. “I don’t…I never wanted to fight over our daughter and my lawyer says I should let her stay with you. The last thing that we need is a long drawn out battle in which we both know who the courts will side with and I don’t have the appetite nor the backbone to listen to her on the stand with everything going on the record and hear how much she hates me Jack, it was bad enough when she was doing it in private”

Jack nodded.

“She’s back at school” he said deciding to cut to the chase. “She spends a lot of time reading in her room to be honest but she was always a little strange like that. As far as I know she still has her friends and she keeps up a correspondence with your father, there are no boys…well…none that she’s told me about but, she seems to have adjusted well”

He tried to keep it as polite as possible telling Rosie the truth as well as what she wanted to hear. The fact that their daughter had been involved in a robbery with a Latvian anarchist and a Lady Detective’s lover was something that he supposed Rosie didn’t have to hear, at least not from him, not today.

There was a pause where they sat there and didn’t say anything for a time and he knew that she was trying to desperately figure a way to keep the conversation going. “So” he said finally. “I take it you are fine with the…settlement…”

Oh god that was a terrible thing to say wasn’t it?

“Yes” Rosie said finally. “I thought that we should keep our accounts separate and now the question of Ellie has been resolved. Jack—” she said suddenly leaning over coffee cup. “Has she said anything, I know, I know that she doesn’t forgive me there are sometimes when I don’t…I know I hurt you and I hurt her and I may never get this relationship back but please tell me, if there is any honesty between the two of us left…have I lost it? Her I mean?”

Jack considered it. He had to because in the two months that she had been with him Ellie had not so much as mentioned her mother once and he didn’t know if George had ever brought it up. The whole thing was rather dangerous territory with his daughter, her dislike for Sidney and her mother he could kind of understand but it continued (certainly for Sidney) even as she came to the realisation that there was nothing in the world that was ever going to get her parents back together.

Nothing.

Of that Jack was now certain went both ways.

But Rosie had been his wife for years, had in the war been his sounding ground and the thing that he thought of during those nights in France and during the day when the mud and the rain and the shit had been so strong that he didn’t think he could go on it had been her that he had thought of and she had been the one to bring him home. Regardless of how he felt now he could never deny that. He never wanted to deny her that. So many other men had, had wives and daughters that they had never seen again.

“You haven’t lost her” he said finally. “She’s sixteen Rosie, she’s pissed but she’ll get over it, you remember what it was like at sixteen? She’s all raw but she doesn’t call you names anymore and that must be a plus?”

Rosie looked away and nodded and Jack was provided the much needed distraction that he craved by the food that was just put down in front of him.

Well, it was a good piece of steak he thought looking at it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie had been at the station waiting for her Dad to come back from closing that carnival case when the door opened and rattled with such a force it nearly sent her diving for the safety of her Dad’s office. Phryne came in and the way she was dressed was too much even for Ellie who had to look away least she be blinded by the sparkles that came from that shiny dress that barely covered the part of Miss Fisher that uncovered would get her arrested for indecent exposure. And in this weather probably get her a bout of pneumonia.

“Long day?” Ellie asked. Phryne sat down crossed her legs in a way that somehow didn’t show her knickers to everyone (though nobody was there) and then flicked a hipflask out from under her boot and took a deep, long draft from whatever liquid it was inside of it.

“Something like that” Phryne said once she had stopped drinking like a sailor on shore leave. “I had to fight a dirty copper, a man who escaped prision and was dressed like a lunatic with enough face paint on him to scare people during the day never mind at night and then of course there is the fact that Murdoch Foyle is apparently dead though I have no idea how that could happen and between us both I’m not sure how much I believe it.” She shook her head and took another swig and coughed down the burn. Ellie watched her because that was the thing with Miss Phryne Fisher—there was something about her that meant you couldn’t take your eyes off her when she was in a mood.

“Who is Murdoch Foyle?” she asked finally.

Phryne paused as if she was thinking hard about something and she looked away. Ellie suspected that this might be painful for her and she tried to come up with some sort of trivial conversation to distract her but finally before she could the woman spoke up sounding as if this was a secret where she had been kept inside her so tightly locked away that even now the thought of telling it was like ripping her heart out.

It was, Ellie realised, the face of grief. Pure, undiluted grief.

“Murdoch Foyle is the man who was convicted of kidnap years ago. The victim managed to escape and named Foyle in court, however he was also suspected of taking little girls, killing them and there was no chance to find the bodies, there has been no bodies…” she trailed off suddenly as if it was painful to go on and then she continued just as sudden and just as soon as she had stopped. “He is the man that was responsible for killing my sister Janey. She was eleven”

Ellie blinked. For once in her life she had nothing to say to that. What was there to say to that? How did you even begin to tackle a question like that.

“You don’t think he’s dead?” she said finally.

“No” Phryne said. “I’d feel it. It’s an unusual feeling Ellie, I promise you however if I thought he was dead I’d know it. Or…or I don’t know but…” and she trailed off looking around as if the very walls of the police station held the answers that she was so desperately trying to seek.

Ellie paused. She had half a mind to tell this woman that in a week her parents were going to be divorced and that her mother had been having an affair for the last seven months with a man who had been effectively making her skin crawl for reasons that she didn’t know about. But she couldn’t. Whatever it was about Sidney that made her pause, that had made her want to get out of that house more than she had wanted to keep a relationship going with her mother.

Oh she had been angry, she had been angrier more than she could say but there was also somethings that she wanted to keep private. At least until she had more of an idea other than a feeling…there wasn’t anyone that she could ask about it either. Or she had supposed at the time.

“Anyhow” Phryne said as if she didn’t want to dwell on matters that were too painful for her.

“How do you have a feeling?” she asked suddenly cutting across whatever the older woman was going to say. “A feeling…how…how do you have that about someone. I mean—how do you know that it’s a genuine feeling rather than one where you blow things up out of proportion?”

“Because you know” Phryne said simply. “If something is so serious you know it and nothing you tell yourself tells you otherwise. You’ll understand as you get older, there are things that a woman learns that can never be taught at school, you learn in life to trust your instincts and your feelings and when something isn’t right you have to put yourself first”

Ellie nodded trying not to think of Sidney’s smile and his hand around her shoulders and the way it made her feel.

“Why don’t you ask your mother about this?”

“Because she’s the reason behind the feelings” Ellie replied grimly.

The door to police station opened then and it was her Dad coming in. He checked at them both sitting there and then smiled. His smile was perhaps more generous than he was allowing to the Lady Detective who had been driving him up the wall since the day he had met her (or at least that he had seen) and he took a deep breath and then smiled at her.

“I was going to invite your daughter to my dear cousin Guy’s engagement party for the weekend” Miss Fisher said in an attempt to break the tension.

“I promise no harm will come to her and there will be no champagne or dalliances in the bushes. It’s a costume party and…and I’d like a bit of fun company. It’s next week”

Ellie looked at him, she knew what next week was, if she was being perfectly honest getting plastered might help her deal with it but she didn’t know what her Dad would think. There was a pause where he stood there and she could see a war that was building between the two thoughts—did he or did he not want his daughter there with him as he ended his marriage of sixteen years and formally left the only woman he had ever loved?

There was a pause where the two of them stared at each other and then her Dad forced an expression onto his face that might have been a smile had it not been stretched over his face.

“That sounds wonderful”

He turned to look at her and Ellie picked up the prompt beautifully if she did say so herself.

“Yes of course, thank you Phryne.”

It was better she supposed than sitting at home and waiting for the inevitable.

Miss Fisher smiled and stood up. “Devil’s complex” she said finally. “All of them have them. Sometimes…when you have that feeling it’s like the devil’s on your shoulder. Or perhaps it’s just me and my devil”

And then she was gone leaving her father in his office trying to shuffle through the papers he was going to take home that night and Ellie wondering if there was ever going to be a time where she would confront her devil and if so what shape would he form?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think. 
> 
> Hopefully next chapter will be up soon.


	8. Now I'm God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Rosie are finally divorced, Miss Fisher and Ellie go to the home of Mrs Stanley for an engagement party where there is a murder, some shocking truths and an uninvited guest at the home of Miss Fisher that sets the stage for the shocking season/chapter finale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter and the penultimate one of Season 1. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this chapter and the next one which will be the end of Season 1, the next season will have a lot more action in it i can promise you that. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine 
> 
> Please Read and Review.

Her bags were packed at the door when Jack finally looked up from the newspaper. He had been steadfastly ignoring the time that was ticking until he had to drop his daughter off at Miss Fishers and then go and get divorced from his wife of sixteen years and he swallowed back the bile in his throat when he thought that he now finally had an excuse to take the gold ring of his finger that his wife had put on his finger when there had been a rather quick wedding that had nothing to do with the storm clouds gathering around Europe and the Empire.

Ellie smiled at him and turned to nab a piece of toast. There was no indication that she had been so much as bothered by what today was. In fact she had come home the previous night, done her homework and then spent a great amount of time trying to figure out what she should wear to the party. Miss Fisher was providing an angel costume (and Jack had major reservations about Miss Fisher and her dress sense providing something for his daughter to wear in a party) but she was still dancing around his kitchen trying to find books to read on the train and the car.

“Are you all set?” he asked smiling, (or trying to smile) at the sight of her alive with some sort of savage joy at the thought of drinking champagne and dancing until dawn with Melbourne’s elite. Ellie thought it was a great thing, Jack was somewhat worried, his daughter was sixteen and had never indulged much in either champagne or in male attention and now she was going to a place where she would have easy access to both without his supervision.

This might end badly.

“Are you sure you are going to be alright today?” Ellie asked reaching for her best blue hat and pinning it into place over the dark curls she had pinned into some sort of messy low bun. Jack didn’t want to notice it today of all days but the resemblance to her mother when she shot him a look like that was stunningly obvious.

Was he going to be alright today? Well that was a question wasn’t it. He thought perhaps he might cry for a little bit and then open a bottle of good scotch and cry some more but then he suspected tomorrow he would be fine. His marriage had been over for a long time before the affair between Rosie and Sidney had come to the surface.

There was a pause where she stood there and he waited until she cocked her head to the side and then he managed to form a smile. “I’m going to be fine” he said turning back to the newspaper. “I promise you, just scrawling my signature on some paper and the this whole thing is done.”

There was a pause and he knew Ellie was going to say something else but mercifully the phone rang and she ran to answer it. Jack took a deep breath and turned back to the paper even though he couldn’t see what she was doing and she couldn’t see how hard his hands were shaking in that moment.

Ellie came back a second later her coat and bag over her arm. “Miss Fisher…” she said finally. “Apparently there has been a murder at her Aunt’s.”

Was it wrong how pleased he was about that?

Well…he did have tome time to kill, and anything was better than pretending that he was alright with the dissolution of his marriage in front of the daughter who had been perhaps one of the main reasons why he had gotten married in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack was right. He didn’t want Ellie in a place like this. Phryne’s cousin was a lecher if ever he saw one, Miss Stanley seemed to indulge him. Arthur was sweet but his faculties were as his mother had said rather limited. And then there was the fiancé. Poor Hugh had nearly been overcome and never mind the fact that Ellie had a good head on her shoulders if she ever turned out like that Jack promised himself then he would lock her up in the convent himself.

However Ellie was tucked away with Jane and Arthur who had taken a liking to his daughter who he had taken one look at and called “Pretty”. Jack took that in his stride and then turned back to questioning only leaving when he had to go back to the station and then onto court. Cec and Burt were staying the night and Mr Butler and there was always the chance that they would keep his daughter out of trouble simply because they knew that they knew that he knew where their criminal records were and how much outstanding charges there were.

Anyhow he still had to go back to court and sign those papers and he didn’t want to think about what that would mean. In fact he didn’t want to think about it at all.

He certainly didn’t want to speak to his daughter before he did it.

He would come back in the morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie stared at herself in the mirror. She had spent the day with Arthur while Phryne and her Dad and Hugh had been investigating the murder of the serving girl who had died. It wasn’t that Ellie didn’t want to investigate, in fact a part of her wanted to do that very much, but the other part of her who knew what the day was and what it meant wanted to take some of Guy’s fudge and some champagne and drink and hash herself to death. If hashing yourself to death was a thing. Or whatever it was called.

This was the safest option she thought. She had spent time with Jane and she had then gone and had a long bath washing her hair and her skin until it was red and her hair until it was so clean she knew it was tangle free without running a brush through it and then she smoothed the expensive body cream that she had ‘borrowed’ from Guy’s fiancé all over her so that she smelled like sandalwood and vanilla and jasmine. Then she put on the costume complete with it’s matching underwear and she stood there looking at it as her hair dried around her curling naturally and not for the first time she thanked god that her father was not coming to this party tonight.

The dress was that of an angel but it was of no angel that she had ever seen and she turned to look at herself in the mirror, the full looking glass that must have cost more than a years worth of her father’s salary. Her hair was curled down her back some of it pinned back from her face allowed to stay there by the halo that was attached to her hair with pins. Her dress on the other hand was shorter than she would have thought it would be. It was a short white dress that fell to just above her knee. The sleeves were long and floaty but they were off the shoulder shocking so, so that it was halfway down the her arms and then there was the back which was open to the bottom of her spine and even with the wings she felt horribly exposed, the skin tights didn’t help matters nor did the white high heeled boots that came to mid thigh. She added some face powder and some blusher and added some eyeliner and mascara that her father didn’t know she had and then she picked up the lipstick Phryne had given her with a wink when she had gone to the room to get ready. It was a darker shade than what she would wear but she had admit with her dark eyelids and her dark red lips, her hair falling over her shoulder and her back on display she looked quite the sexpot.

The problem was she thought was that there was nobody her age that would take notice.

Maybe her school would do a ball like this and then there would be a boy and a flirtation and a delicious dance that would make her feel alive even as her family was now over. Her mother and father were now separated. There was a long pause where she stood there and she nodded to herself and grinned looking at herself in the mirror. This was a new Ellie. This was an Ellie who had divorced parents and a friend who defied expectations and conventions about what a woman should and shouldn’t be.

She came down the stairs and took the glass of champagne that was offered to her and she smiled and grinned at Jane with her hood up and Mrs Stanley in her best frock with a crown and a wand for celebration.

For a second, for a split second she wondered what her mother would make of her getting dressed for her first proper party and drinking champagne and applying her own eyeliner and she had to down her drink fast. She had never once considered her mother as anything other than in contempt but not for the first time she found herself desperate to tell her all that had been going on.

Was it possible that she had finally come to the forgiveness and acceptance part of this whole process? Had she finally started to forgive? She downed her second glass of champagne and she pretended not to see the stare of Burt as he saw her. At that moment however there was a pause where she was pulled onto the dance floor by Guy whose hands might be a bit drifty but it was nice to dance with him and then more people who didn’t know her who she didn’t know.

She was still dancing and spinning around laughing when her father came in, went upstairs with Miss Fisher and then disappeared only to come back down looking like he had just had a tumble in the car (had she not known him to mix business with pleasure then she would have said that was exactly what he was doing). By that point everyone was on the scavenger hunt.

“Come on El” Jane said holding out her hand and weather or not it was the champagne or the fact that she was alive tonight in a way that she had never felt before that had her running after the girl her hair flying back, her heels clacking against the paving stones. Either way neither one of them noticed the man in the wolf costume move out of the shadows and stand there and smile at them running away into the woods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack had been almost panting with fear. Nearly sixteen years in the force broken only by four years in combat and throughout all of it he had remained fighting fit. And yet there was something about chasing Arthur or as Phryne would tell him Murdoch Foyle that made him feel overweight and clumsy. And he knew it was nothing to do with the cold.

It had more to do with the fact that Ellie was out there with Jane in the dark and there was someone out there after them or after some innocent girl like Marigold Brown. And that he now knew was one of the most paralyzing fears that he had ever imagined. There was a pause where he stood there gun in hand desperately looking around he came to the conclusion that this fear about losing his child was worse than all of those years in combat. In France where he had gone over the top and at the beaches where he could never get to the top because he knew the enemy would kill him. This fear was worse than never seeing his daughter again when she had been a baby. This was worse…it was so worse that he couldn’t put them into words.

And then he saw her.

It was Ellie because in the moonlight she looked like a young Rosie. She could have past for her mother sixteen years ago and then he saw what she was wearing.

Oh hell no.

She looked like some sort of sex angel, her skirt was up her legs, her legs were longer than he had ever seen and more of them were on display and then there was the whole backless dress thing. He made a mental note to never let his daughter into a store with Miss Fisher again.

Ever.

“Ellie” He cried and she turned to face him looking rather surprised that he was standing there but he didn’t let her finish instead reaching out to hug her close to him even as his mouth was almost choking on feathers.

“What’s going on?”  that was Jane standing next to his daughter looking confused. Jack could have cried and judging by the look of Cleopatra next to him she could have too.

“Gather your things, both of you” he said. “I’ll explain once your at Miss Fishers”

He didn’t realise until later that he had never stopped for one second from looking at towards the darkened horizon like he used to do in France waiting for that moment where there would be enemy guns trained on him and even in the dark he had known that they could see him and he could see them.

Some habits were just to hard to shake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie had been leaning her head against the window her legs crossed with the other one as she breathing in the cool night air as the taxi trundled along the roads. She had no idea what had happened and to be honest the champagne was making her feel a bit light headed but she knew that something must have happened. Her Dad did not get that look on his face for any old reason.

The taxi suddenly pulled up sharply causing Burt who was inhaling champagne like he had just got into Paris post the end of the war nearly fell of his seat. Jane her eyes falling shut every so often and Ellie had kicked off her boots to allow the blood to rush through her feet. All in all they were not what you would say equipped for guests. But she supposed Burt and Cec were warfies and always on the lookout for a wage.

It wasn’t until they got home to the beautiful red and white building and she had gone upstairs with her bag to chance into some pyjama’s that she was reminded of what that man in the back of the cab had made her feel like. He had made her feel like she had done when she had first met Sidney and he had put his hand around her and it had slid down her back and made her feel like she was some sort of lapdog that he was interested in. It was one of the reasons why she was so desperate to get away from him. Oh there was the fact that she had been—and she was beyond angry with her mother but there had been something in the way that both the man in the cab had looked at her and Sidney had looked at her that was strikingly similar—like she was a tool that could be put to good use. Not like a person at all.

She took a deep breath and climbed down the stairs her hair falling in loose curls, her face free of make up and clad in her softest flannel pyjama’s only to see the very same man come out of the kitchen. There was no doubt Ellie thought, she had seen him somewhere before and it was going to bug the shit out of her until she could figure it out.

He stared at her for a second and then gave some sort of mock bow in her direction and then sauntered off out the front door as if he owned the place. Ellie shivered. The night was quite warm but there was something about his presence that made the room freezing. She came downstairs to see Jane and a rather hungover Mr Butler eating an immense amount of bread and jam. Dinner seemed like a long time ago and so she took some crumbling the bread between her fingers and she was just about to ask what the hell he had been doing there when the door burst open and there were too identical shouts of terror.

“Jane!”

“Ellie?!”

Then through the door came her Dad and Miss Fisher. There was something about his expression that had her on her feet in a second.

“Where’s Murdoch Foyle?”

“Who?” Jane asked but Ellie suddenly understood what that man was and why he had made her feel like he had. Gods above she and Jane were both lucky to be alive.

She was still silent as her father came back in and explained what had happened. How Foyle had escaped from prison (“Like a God” Miss Fisher had said with a roll of her eyes that didn’t quite detract Ellie from noticing her hands were shaking violently clutching her pistol) and that he had murdered Marigold Brown and was still out there. She didn’t say anything as they were sent to bed and she curled up in the bed next to Jane feeling the younger girl fall asleep.

It was a long time before Eleanor Robinson fell asleep that was for sure. She didn’t know when exactly but she knew enough to know it was probably early hours in the morning and as sleep finally came for her she found it a strange thing indeed that this morning or yesterday or whenever the one thing she had been worried about was her dress and that it had seemed a lifetime ago that her parents had finally, officially, legally ended their marriage of over sixteen years.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And let me know what you think and i will try and update sooner rather than later with the final chapter of the Season 1 arc.
> 
> And thank you all so much for your kind comments it means a lot. 
> 
> Feedback is adored.


	9. Some Days Matter More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As The Season 1 arc is drawn to a close the race is on to catch Murdoch Foyle. 
> 
> In which there are powerful drugs used, Jane and Jack are both kidnapped, Ellie fights back and the answer to a decade long mystery is exposed allowing everyone involved to get some sort of peace, clarity and closure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is the final chapter of my arc for Season 1. I hope you all enjoy this arc and my arc for Season 2 will begin sooner rather than later. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Please Read and Review 
> 
> And again spelling and grammar are not my strongest suit so please keep that in mind

Two days later and the level of security had not changed whatsoever. There was a pause where each morning Ellie woke up and remembered the look that Murdoch Foyle had given her and for a second each day there was a pause where she was frozen in fear thinking about it. For two days this was her life and she noted that her father had taken on the act of a drill officer making sure that she wasn’t outside when she came home unless she had to be or that Burt and Cec were there when he wasn’t. For a man who had claimed that he didn’t trust two warfies he was spending a lot of time trusting them with the life of his only daughter.

When she wasn’t  with them she was at Miss Fishers who took to prowling up and down the stairs and through her hallway her gun in her handbag and trying to pretend that she wasn’t itching to go after the man who she believed had murdered her sister who had sat and had tea with a girl she considered her daughter and her…well…whatever her Dad and Phryne were to each other and that was a conversation she didn’t want to have with her father and she didn’t want to have it with a woman that she considered her friend as well.

At least not now. Not when the divorce between her parents was still to raw.

And not when she was under threat, not certainly when she missed her mother so much.

It was becoming an ache Ellie realised one morning when she slept In, an ache that she was slowly beginning to realise that she was struggling with and she found that she missed her Mum. It was stupid really, she had been angry for so long and she had been so uncomfortable around Sidney that she hadn’t even wanted to see the facts in front of her which would be that at some point she would miss her mother. The divorce was finalised and as Ellie could see (and perhaps everyone else who wasn’t her father and Phryne) that her father too was heading towards a relationship.

Every day for two days she closed her eyes in the morning and pretended that everything was going to be ok when in reality it was far from it. Monday came around and she went to school like it was nothing and then she got the cab back home from Burt despite the fact that she wanted to walk but he had Jane who looked torn between the fear that Ellie felt and the annoyance of how their lives had, had to change because of this one man with a vendetta.

Her father was working late again and Phryne had taken to pacing around her living room before shooting a look at Ellie and then disappearing out the door to go and find some professor at the university that Murdoch Foyle had been teaching at prior to the war. Ellie still only had the brief inkling of what he had done to her sister but she had been too tired to listen to Dot making tea and so she snagged herself one of the cakes that the woman had made and then turned her attention to carrying her bag upstairs and pulling out one of her books that she had to read for the following day.

She was still upstairs when she heard the sound of the backdoor opening. She didn’t hear Burt or Cec speaking and so she pulled on her boots that she had kicked off along with her tie when she had pulled of her cardigan and untucked her school shirt and she padded down the stairs and into the hallway.

Burt was there by the phone, his eyes were open but they were moving and she was torn between horror at the sight of him and fear at what was coming next. She slid down the last of the stairs and into the dining room and then she saw Cec and Dot both in similar states. She edged around and saw Jane her body crumpled like a doll that had, had it’s legs cut off and she only had a second to see it when something heavy hit her on the side of the head and she fell to the ground hitting the side of her face against the table.

And for Ellie Robinson it all went black for a long time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack had been talking to Hugh when the door opened and someone with dark hair almost fell into the station. He looked up from where Miss Fisher was on the phone trying to talk to Burt to see weather or not he had taken the last surviving victim of Murdoch Foyle to the train station or not for her own wellbeing. So far she was getting no reply and her voice as she shouted at the operator was getting higher and higher as every second ticked by.

However, he looked up at the sight of the brown haired girl coming into the station and then when she looked up his heart almost fell down his chest and into his boots. For a second he felt both hot and cold at the same time like he was running a fever and he swallowed trying to work his mouth again because he found that the time he was incapable of words.

This was not like the war. This was nothing like the war. This was in fact so much worse than the war. He would take France all over again even during that winter of 1916 where he thought he would lose some toes to frostbite rather than feel like he did right now.

There was a pause where he found that he couldn’t move. It was Ellie who had staggered into the station her hair flying around her face and when she looked up he saw that her face was covered in blood. Her eyes were dazed somewhat and he could see that her hands were shaking, she must have walked the distance from Phryne’s house herself and he knew that was no distance and he was suddenly aware that something terrible must have happened if she was here alone looking the way she did.

Within a second he had crossed the hall of the station and pulled her into his arms.

“Ellie…Ellie…what the hell? What the hell happened, sweetheart are you ok?” he was aware he was rambling, that Hugh had gone to get Phryne and that Ellie was leaning against him even as he guided them to a chair.

As far as he could tell the blood coming from the side of her head was because of a shallow cut that was steadily bleeding but other than that there seemed to be no sign of injury or any other thing that could have happened. If she had been attacked on the street someone would have come to her aid. If she had been attacked in the house then…then God only knows what would happen next.

“I was upstairs and then I came down and it was like…everyone was dead but they weren’t, Burt and Dot their eyes were moving even if they couldn’t move and then before I could go and see if Jane was ok something hit me on the side of the head and I think I cracked my head on the side of the table when I fell. I just…when I woke up Jane was gone and I just…ran…I didn’t know if he was there and…Oh God Dad I left everyone there...”

And then she started panicking the adrenaline that had gotten her here was collapsing and she was beginning to panic and Jack dropped to his knees and cupped her face in his hands looking over every inch of the child that he loved more than his whole life.

“No” he said firmly hoping that the tremor that he could hear in his voice was something that only he could hear and he swallowed finally. “No Ellie this was not your fault. I promise you my girl you did great” He pressed a kiss on the side of her face that was not bashed and battered part of her head and she dropped it to his shoulder her own shaking with silent sobs. He shot a look to Hugh and his constable knew what to do thank god muttering something about calling Doctor MacMillian. He didn’t look to where Miss Fisher was, his worry for Phryne and what she would do when she realised that the man who had killed her sister had taken her daughter did nothing to distract him from the sobs that were coming from his own.

He stayed there regardless of what happened until the doctor herself arrived her face white and her face as resolute as her friend.

There was a pause where she stood there and bit her bottom lip and she took a deep breath as she began examining Ellie’s head.

“From what I can see” She said wiping away the blood and then using her flashlight thing to check weather Ellie’s brain was still working properly. “The cut is shallow, head wounds always bleed a bit more than any wounds and this has just bled, a couple of stiches and some painkillers to take over the week and all should be fine”

Jack nodded and pressed another kiss into Ellie’s hair. He still had one arm around her and he imagined that he would never let her go again.

However, he had to, before Ellie there had been another oath to protect his country from criminals and there was a woman that he admired running after one who had a personal vendetta against her. And he had to keep that oath because without him he didn’t know what he was or who he was or what he lived for.

And he had to leave his daughter while he did that.

And that just cut his heart in half.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie was left with the doctor Hugh throwing himself out the door after Miss Fisher and Dot. The doctor (call me Elizabeth for the love of god woman!) had been in the process of placing a needle near her head and neither her nor Ellie could stop them.

Elizabeth finished the stitches in record time and then when Ellie stood up she made her walk In a straight line back and forth until she was sure that she didn’t have an kind of injury in her brain or anywhere else and then she gave her a strong glass of whiskey that she found in the bottom of her Dad’s draw and made her sip it until she was satisfied or Ellie felt slightly drunk whichever came first. Then she asked for the full story and then once she had it she stood up and motioned for Ellie to follow her.

She did following the doctor into her car.

“This professor was the last person to see at least one person and both your father, Hugh and Phryne have all disappeared. Burt and Cec are both recovering because they do take their tea with milk and Dot was stabbed from behind with a needle or so she says and…well come on we have to go and find them”

Ellie didn’t want to say anything to that least of all that she was actually in the car and she was waiting on the doctor to find the ignition.

Now Ellie had been in a car with Miss Fisher before and she had, had to grit her teeth against the speed of the car and the way that she went down roads but the doctor was going faster and faster than she could have ever dreamed off. She had to grit her teeth as the car went off and not for the first time Ellie wondered how the hell they were both licensed still to drive on the open road.

She was still slightly dizzy when she opened the door but considering the way that the doctor was running she had to trip and struggle to keep up as she ran down corridors next to her.

The door to her left slid open and the doctor skidded to a halt gripping Ellie on the arm so she didn’t skid through the open glass door. There was a pause as Ellie skidded to a halt and stood there. Hugh came out first with Murdoch Foyle in handcuffs. The man snarled at Ellie who shrank back against the wall not knowing what to do. Elizabeth’s hand came out and grabbed her and then she stood up straighter as Jane came out of the room.

The girl was trembling her hair a mess even in it’s ribbons and she took one look around the room.

“Ellie!” she cried and then she pitched herself forwards into Ellie’s arms who forgot that she was a sixteen year old and Jane was four years younger than her and she swallowed bitterly wrapping her arm around the girl so that they were hugging.

“Oh I saw you fall and I was so worried” Jane said and Ellie shook her head feeling it ring and hugged the girl back rather than explain what had happened or what was going to happen next.

She looked up and saw her Dad carrying Miss Fisher bridal style and looking white to the lips she was clearly out of it but they made it in a mass of hugs and arms wrapped around each other out into the sunlight. There was a pause when she stood there and then Jane went to the nearest thing that she had to a mother and Ellie went straight to her father’s side and she didn’t leave it until they finally got home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two days later they found Janey Fisher buried near a willow tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A week after that there was a pause as she stood there and took a deep breathe and then she opened the door to Miss Fisher’s house. Everyone was dancing and celebrating and she took a step towards the door to the parlour. She was dressed in a long sleeved boat-neck dark pink outfit that she never wore until recently because she didn’t like pink that much but she wore it today and she dithered on the doorstep. It felt like a celebration and a funeral all at once. The nightmare of Murdoch Foyle was over and everyone was alive and safe and still she felt nothing but relief.

“You ok?” a voice behind her said and then she stood up straighter and turned to see her father watching her.

“Yeah” she said finally “You alright if I go out early tomorrow…I err…I wanna have breakfast with Mum”

For a second her Dad didn’t say anything but then he smiled and Ellie realised he had been suffering with her Mum and also with her. He truly didn’t hold any issues with her and the divorce had finalised and now they were both free to go and live their lives.

And Ellie was just along for the ride.

She felt him rather than saw him kiss her on the side of her still bruised head and she watched him go off and chat to Miss Fisher…Phryne and she smiled. Finally Ellie thought, finally a relationship she could accept when it happened. Closure was given to each and everyone of them and they were all looking forwards to the future. Ellie was looking forwards to the future. And the next adventure that came with Miss Fisher, Lady Detective.

She caught Jane’s eye and knew that they were both thinking the same thing when they looked at their parents after this nightmare.

For once Ellie knew that they were both alright with what was coming. It was more than what she had felt before and it had to be a good thing. She hoisted her glass of champagne higher than before and with a face that was brave she crossed the threshold into the new room and she felt the smile on her face more genuine rather than forced like it had been months ago when she had watched her mother dance around a new man, much in the way her father was doing right now.

Life, Eleanor Robinson decided there and then as she sipped her champagne was for once looking good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you go. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for your feedback.


	10. Allegiance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie’s grandfather is involved in a murder. Phryne and Rosie meet for the first time. 
> 
> The ice between mother and daughter is slowly thawing, Phryne has suspicions and Ellie surprises herself when she helps out with the investigation. 
> 
> Meanwhile Jack is both exasperated and somewhat aroused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter and the first of Season 2. I hope you all enjoy and I just wanted to say thank you for all your kind words so far, please keep them coming they mean a lot!
> 
> As I always say spelling and grammar are not my strongest suit so therefore any inaccuracies I apologise. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Ellie is mine. Nothing else.

There was a knock on the door that roused her from sleep. It took Ellie a second to get out of bed and realise that she slept in. But really? Who was rude enough to knock at seven thirty in the morning? She padded in her pyjama’s outside to see who it was.

It was her mother.

For a second they stared at each other and Ellie had to resist the urge to close the door. There was a pause where she stood there and then she opened it a little bit wider.

“You look well…”

“Dad’s err not here…he’s at the station”

“I need to see him, it’s…it’s your grandfather. He’s in the hospital and he’s in trouble”

“Dad’s not a doctor” Ellie said stupidly.

“No” her mother said. “He…Ellie he was found with a dead prostitute in his room at home”

Ellie stared at her for a second wondering if she had heard this right and then she shook her head.

“This is Grandpa. He’s spent half his life trying to close those places and your telling me he’s on the take?”

“He’s not on the take. He’s being set up! And…where is your father?”

“Station. Give me a second to get dressed and we can go together”

And then she turned to go back to her room wishing that she didn’t see the look on her face which was more surprise than it was pleasure.

Either way she got dressed in record time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phryne was looking around the office and trying to focus her mind on the investigation and not on the fact that Jack’s ex wife was standing there talking to him and his daughter was dithering by the door. There was a pause where she stood there taking them in. Rosie Sanderson was a very pretty woman she had to give her that. She had long dark hair that was twisted into an elegant knot behind her hat, dark eyes that were the exact shade as her daughters and Phryne had to give her credit—a rather smooth dress sense. Either way she was stunning. It was easy to see why Jack had fallen in love with her sixteen years ago.

The resemblance to Ellie was almost striking and Phryne took in the picture on the mantle of the three of them probably when Ellie was five, the perfect happy family. Jack with no lines around his eyes and Ellie without that snarl that came to her whenever she mentioned her mother or her new boyfriend.

So they were divorced.

Well. That was better than going after the man while he was still married she supposed.

Much better. Even for her she had some limits even though she suspected Jack wasn’t interested. And really? She wasn’t the type to be some rebound that came at the end of sixteen year marriage which had survived a war, strikes, a teenager with a temper and an opinion on how the world should be run and probably more late nights than she had, had.

But still they were talking about what had happened. Ellie was stood close to her mother and she could see the happy family that they had once been. The second that image came to her she had to look away. She was here on a mission to help Dot’s sister and if she was being honest with herself If it wasn’t for that she would probably walk away from this case for the simple fact that for the first time since she had started working with Jack she felt out of place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack opened the door to his ex father in law’s hospital door and before he could even say anything Ellie was pushing past him her face that stone like mask she had used when she had seen the reporters coming at them. She reached over and hugged her grandpa and George for all his stiffness and procedural demands to the job put down his newspaper and opened his arms for his only grandchild.

Jack watched them and had to look away. George had been on his side for most of the divorce even if he had not said much. He knew enough to know that there was no way he got Ellie in his house without George telling Rosie to do it. And…and he’d known the man for sixteen years. Surely he would know if the man was involved in something he wasn’t?

He sighed leaning against the wall. He was going to have to interview his father in law, his ex father in law and he was going to have to ask him about the dead dancer and he was going to have to do it in front of his daughter and probably his ex wife.

The door opened then and he turned and the stomach dropped out from under him. Ellie’s head shot upwards and for a second, just for the quickest of seconds he saw what looked like panic on her face but then it was gone and the cold mask she had reserved for her mother was back on her face and judging by the fact that the smile on Rosie’s face slid off as soon as she caught sight of his daughter’s expression. Sidney didn’t even seem to notice. Jack couldn’t help but desire a good stiff drink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You wanna tell me what that was about?” Jack said finally as they were walking back to the car the pavement thankfully free from reporters or over zealous citizens shouting abuse at him as he walked through the streets.

“I don’t like Sidney, I think he’s scum and you know that” she said simply not turning to look at him. Jack allowed himself one small smile as he took in his daughters truculent expression.

“Sweetheart while I appreciate the loyalty he is going to marry your mother and you did say that you couldn’t stay mad at her forever”

“This isn’t about you Dad.” She said shaking her head as if she thought he was being exceptionally stupid on purpose and then she was gone striding ahead of him her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail swishing from side to side.

Jack had no idea what that meant and found that for once he didn’t want to know. Sidney Fletcher had done enough damage to him for him to care all that much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie had not meant to go to the club with Burt and Cec. She had been lonely in her house and she had the distinct feeling that her phone was ringing all the time with journalists so instead she decided while her Dad was working late to go to the big red house and see if she could beg a hot meal of Dot.

She was right of course and she was helping herself to a generous helping of apple pie when the backdoor opened and the two men came in.

“I want to go to the Imperial Club” Dot said finally. Ellie choked on her pie as Burt spat a mouthful of tea into the sink and Cec looked as if Dot had told them that she wanted to be smuggled into the German embassy in cake dressed as a can-can dancer.

“You do know what the Imperial Club is don’t you?” Ellie said finally taking a huge gulp of milk.

“How do you know what the Imperial Club is?” Cec asked.

“My father was part of the raid last month that was ordered by my grandfather” Ellie deadpanned. “And I go to a school with hormone drenched teenage boys who all know what types of services are provided…” she caught sight of the look on Dot’s face and then turned the end of the sentence into a cough. There was a pause where they all were silent in the kitchen and then Burt snapped his biscuit in two.

“Why are we going to the Imperial Club Dot?”

“I have to drop off Miss Fisher’s feathers”

Again she looked up to three incomprehensible looks but Ellie had a sudden sharp feeling that she knew where this one was going.

“She’s not working there is she?”

The disapproving silence from Dot said everything.

“Yeah” Ellie said finally. “I am not missing this”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The club was all glitter and glam and Ellie could see at once why Dot’s sister would like to work here as opposed to what Dot did which was keep house and occasionally go over the speed limit. She could also see why her Grandpa wanted places like this closed down. Within two seconds of walking in she had been handed a glass of champagne and seen two men (one of whom she thought might be a crown prosecutor) send her flirtatious winks.

It was like stepping into another world and Ellie wondered if this had been what Paris was like when Phryne had, had to take her clothes off to eat. It was all shiny and glittery and she finished her champagne just as Hugh Collins and her father came up the stairs and judging by the look on his face and he did not think that the events taking place at the Imperial Club were something to celebrate.

There was a pause where she stood there and hoped that he wouldn’t notice that she was standing there especially as at that moment the light dimmed. She took the second glass of champagne she was offered took a sip of it and then put it back on the bar as Miss Fisher with two feather fans and a small skirt and she danced across the stage as if she owned it.

Ellie paused taking in her the fact that the room had sharpened considerably, and every man was looking at her. Even her Dad. For a second, she took in the look on his face and saw that it was amused and something else that she couldn’t (and she didn’t) want to put a name on. Because if she did then…then she had to go away and ask herself did she want her life that she had earned so hard to get with her father ruined again like it had done with her Mum?

She turned around again just as Miss Fisher lifted her fans and she snorted unable to stop the uncontrollable giggles that came to the surface as she got an eyesight of bare flesh. God this woman was really something else. Ellie could almost feel Dot’s disapproval from the other side of the bar and found that only made her laugh harder.

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on the way she saw it her giggling made her father look over at her. Had Ellie been looking she would have seen the look of fury mixed in with mingled exasperation on his face but he crossed the room in two seconds flat and had her by the elbow in one.

“What are you doing here?”

“Applying for a job” Ellie deadpanned.

“Eleanor this is really not the time for any funny jokes. Why are you standing in the middle of the seediest place in Melbourne?”

Ellie took in his expression and then stood up a little straighter. When her Dad looked like that she tended to do as she was told.

“Look Burt and Cec had to drop Dot off and I thought that I may as well come. What else was I going to do? This place is kinda cool you know? Very dreamy”

“It is not dreamy” her Dad said waspishly. “This place has as much dream as the Somme”

The staring contest between the two of them was broken by some scantily clad woman dressed in red came over with what looked like a gin and tonic in a large big glass and passed it to Ellie.

“I didn’t order this” she said taking the drink and taking a sip.

“No but the man over there said a girl as pretty as you should have something to drink” she said showing a man in his forties sat at the end of the bar. He leered for a second and then winked in her direction and Ellie didn’t dare look at her father.

For a second the two of them were stood there alone and Ellie went to take another sip only to have the glass ripped out of her hand. Expecting a rebuke she turned around to see her Dad down the drink in three gulps and slam the glass back onto the bar.

“Car” he said grimly. “Now.”

Ellie didn’t dare answer back even if she couldn’t stop grinning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack hated the Imperial Club. He hated this job and he hated the man that his now Ex-Wife had chosen to be with and he hated the fact that he had to go and arrest his father in law today. He took a swig of whiskey. Damn allegiances, at this point he had too many to too many different people for him to count. He took another vicious swig from the bottle. He was going to need another one soon if he kept this up.

Ellie had been at the Imperial Club. There had been a moment where she had not looked like his little girl under all of those lights she had looked like a women on the verge of something that he didn’t want to name. A man had bought her drinks and she had taken them and she was changing right before his eyes.

Oh and that was before they got to the fact that Miss Fisher had been half naked across the stage with an image that Jack was pretty sure he was never going to get out of his brain and he also wasn’t sure if he wanted to and that was going to be a long conversation that he would have to have with himself.

God he hated that club.

And just for good measure he hated Sidney Fletcher too. Who wore a suit that shiny? It was borderline unmanly for God’s sake! What did Rosie see in him anyway? But then he stopped because thinking of his ex wife made him think of her father and then the club and then his daughter at the club leaning against the bar and having no idea that she looked like the very definition of innocence surrounded by some of the seediest people in town.

Dreamy indeed! He was right in saying that that place had as much charm as the Somme.

The door to the prescient opened and slammed shut and Jack closed his eyes in despair.

There was really only one person he knew who could slam open a door like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She should be happy. Certainly Ellie was happy. Her grandpa was off the hook for murder, Jack it seemed was happy too. He was no longer beholden to either boss or ex wife and George Sanderson was happy, his daughter was happy. Everyone was happy.

And yet Phryne Fisher wasn’t.

Because there was something about this, it was all too neat and too in a box and too easily wrapped up. There were too many loose ends to wind up, the ledger, the person who Murray had been about to shout as the ringleader of this operation, the cops on the payroll and then George Sanderson had shot him and now she was never going to know and whatever it was that was being covered up would stay on being covered.

And there was something about Sanderson…something she didn’t like.

She reminded herself that night as she slipped in between the covers that she should be happy, that girls death had been avenged, Dot had her sister back though for how long who knew and everyone was happy.

Happy, happy, happy.

But…but there was something about the way that Murray had been desperate to say that he had been in the thrall of someone else. There were too many holes in George Sanderson’s story. How did he know where they were anyway? Had Jack told him? Had Ellie?

No. Jack wouldn’t compromise a case that was ongoing and Ellie had known next to nothing due to her father’s desire to keep her out of the spotlight.

She turned on her side and burrowed under the covers feeling sleep nag at her (perhaps she was getting too old to dance until dawn half naked). Questions like these could be answered another day she supposed. Right now she wanted to imagine the look of surprise on Jack’s face when he had seen her naked on the stage for everyone to see. Had she seen something else there as well? Or was she imagining it?

Either way she thought to herself finding a smile all thoughts of George Sanderson and Murry and corruption out of her head for the time being, it had most certainly been worth it.

And in the dark, she giggled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you go, next update should be soon. 
> 
> Feedback is adored.


	11. Life During Wartime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Prudence Stanley has a new friend at Phryne’s much to her annoyance (and Jack’s) and not for the first time Jack revisits the ghosts of the past that he thought he left in the mud. Mostly Jack-centric chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, here is another chapter! 
> 
> This is all Jack's point of view and is dedicated as it is posted during the month of November to all the soldiers who died in the first world war and any and all wars after that. I find this episode particularly moving and find that even though they had three characters on the show that served (Burt, Cec, Jack) and Miss Fisher the fact they never went more into the war as they headed into the second and third season particularly galling, I like to think the character of Freddie would have made them all think about their time in France and therefore this chapter was born because of that. 
> 
> There are some attitudes in this chapter that were of the time such as anyone who didn't serve was a coward in 1920 Australia and over the world this would have been a common feeling and thought so please keep that in mind. 
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway now that's over with enjoy the chapter. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just Ellie and this little plot bunny. 
> 
> Spelling and grammar are not my strong suit netiher are names so anythign incorrect i apologise. 
> 
>  
> 
> And let me know what you think. 
> 
> Enjoy.

Ellie had been asleep when Jack got the call. It was early for a Sunday morning and Jack thought to himself as he got dressed amid the cool morning it should be punishable to commit crimes this early—It was of course but there should be a special charge for people who got detectives out of bed before the appropriate time of eight o clock on their weekends off.

Hugh looking a little worse for wear himself met him at the gate to the cemetery. It looked like a grave digger-someone who did the night shift had fallen over and got caught on something but with the way the body was angled he couldn’t be sure unless he had someone examine it. Someone had also disturbed the tomb of a Roland Claremont who had been in the war. Jack didn’t think it was much of a grave—most men who had died in France or in Gallipoli had stayed there but the families sometimes liked to put memories into boxes and at least give themselves some closure. He had been to enough of those funerals in 1919 to last a lifetime.

And just when he thought he was safe he heard the tell tale signs of high heels and saw Miss Fisher peeking under the sheet covering the dead man. Honestly. That woman had bat signals for whenever there was a murder happening. How she knew about this one he didn’t know, and it wasn’t like she was visiting her sister because Jack had been to that funeral too and he knew this was not the graveyard that Janey Fisher was buried at. So why she was here with her Aunt, a woman and two men that he had never met he didn’t want to know.

“Hello Jack” she said brightly. Jack tried not to look at her too much because there was still a part of him that remembered that night in the Imperial Club and he was sure getting a look at her with those damn feathers was still seared behind his eyelids and he wasn’t sure if he could deal with the mortification that came with that memory.

“Hello” he said finally. “Crime scene”

It didn’t seem to stop her and Jack had to grab her by the elbow twice and push her away from the dead solider in the grave so that he could see past her. Of course this had to deal with Prudence Stanley. The last time Jack had, had to deal with that women it had involved his daughter being wacked around the head, Phryne being kidnapped, four dead including a nun, an escaped convict and the closing of four open child homicides. He wasn’t sure weather or not he could go through that again because he didn’t think he had that in him again.

There was a pause where he took in the man, he tore his gaze away from Miss Fisher when he started coughing. Jack knew that kind of cough only to well. He didn’t need Phryne touching his arm and her quiet mutter of “Mustard gas” to know what that sound was like. That was the sound of a man trying to catch his breath even when his lungs were so tired and blistered and aching to take another one. Jack had lived amongst that sound just as he had lived with rats and mud and the call for gas masks in the night and he knew what had happened to Freddie Ashmead only too well because he had seen men go down clutching at their own throats and knew that he couldn’t help them. Hell he had thrown their corpses onto the carts as they came by or put them in a corner and wondered how long they’d have before their stench would permeate the trench.

He took a deep breath and tore his eyes away from the scene least he be caught staring. Talking about the war with Miss Fisher was not something he wanted to do. Somethings…somethings…had to be left buried.

Jack thought he covered it well, he passed off a joke about how she had commanded his case before he even knew he had one and then she rewarded him with a smile turning on her heel and almost skipping down the path back to her friends. Jack stuck his hand in his pocket and curled his fingers in his jacket. He tried to pretend that it was cold and he was freezing having left his gloves in the car but the reality was that he was shaking with fear not cold and it was not that windy a day.

There was a long pause where he stood there and it wasn’t until Hugh called him back to the scene that he was back in the present and he forced himself to focus on the dead body in front of him and not on the ones that were still over there.

He was still thinking over this when he got to the house and he met Mrs Stanley who was all but quivering with indignation telling him that she had gotten her godson home from France.

 “How much red tape did you have to go through to do that?” he said pulling his attention back to the present. He had no idea what had happened and he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to like looking for answers on this one.

“Did you think that I was going to leave him rotting in some turnip field?” Mrs Stanley demanded looking horrified at the thought. Jack wanted to say that he had known good men, poorer men and younger men who had been buried in those turnip fields and their families probably didn’t have the power to get their sons home. Instead he bit his tongue and reminded himself that people like Prudence Stanley were never really going to get what it had been like over there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His investigation took him to the war office. Roland Claremont had been the type of officer Jack wouldn’t have given two pennies too. He had numerous right ups for commendations but had high casualty rates and not just from going over the top. The man that had signed the death certificate had been a stretcher bearer by the name of Percy Bishop. That he decided he was going to leave to Miss Fisher, chances are she was going to go looking for trouble, a stretcher bearer who had never carried a gun was not going to be trouble for her unless she punched him.

“I’ll take Burt and Cec with me” she said beaming when he handed her the file. “That way I’m not going to be in any danger whatsoever, besides I need them out of my house, talk about running underfoot with this whole spiritualistic thing”

Jack nodded unable to stop himself from snorting.

“You know Burt and Cec both served” he said finally once she stopped sniggering into his tea. “You served as well, you really think those two are going to play nice with a stretcher bearer who never carried arms.”

“You make it sound like it was a fun job, it had it’s share of the dangers too”

“Oh I know that” he conceded. “I saw enough of them killed on the Somme alright but Burt and Cec won’t see it that way, I arrested them once for a brawl with someone they suspected was an objector, got a long rant on cowards that I actually didn’t disagree with at the time.”

“1919?” she quipped.

“1920, but the feelings were still raw” he said closing the file he had on Freddie Ashmead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Why do you think Mrs What’s-Her-Name is lying?” Ellie asked him two nights later when she was pouring over her geography book. She had a test and she was focusing her attention on a map of the Soviet Union and the changing geography that had come in the aftermath of the war and she had found out, no doubt from Hugh about the spiritualist society holding court in Phryne’s house.

Jack looked up from the soup he was stirring. Dot had made them some extra and sent it to the station with Hugh when he had last come by. Jack suspected she was cooking to take her mind off the fact that she was living with a woman who thought ghosts were real and had sat through two attempts to communicate them. She had sent over two fresh loaves with the chicken and mushroom soup, two banana and nut loaves and a load of chocolate chip cookies. Clearly the stress was getting to her but Jack didn’t have it in him to complain especially considering he’d have no time to go shopping until tomorrow and that was if he was lucky and there was a break in the case.

“No I don’t” he said finally. “I think people like that are nothing but criminals out for a quick shilling by playing on mothers and wives and sisters grief.” He shook his head feeling his teeth gnash together and he bit his bottom lip to keep the memories at bay. He poured the soup into two bowls as Ellie cleared her books away and went to pour some milk into the milk jug.

“Are there many of them?”

“Not now. After the war there were hundreds. It seemed like me and your grandfather were always arresting someone who had just robbed their customers. Didn’t matter if you were rich or poor if you could pay then they would get you an ‘interview’ so to speak with your dead solider or sailor.”

Ellie stared at him as she poured the tea and added her milk. Jack placed the bread with the bread knife on the table and then they both sat down spoons in hand. Jack took a piece of bread and spread the butter on the white surface. Ellie took a hunk of bread and dumped it into the soup. There was nothing but the scrape of spoons on bowls for a while and then Ellie spoke up again.

“Are you going to be alright with this case Dad? When it involves a soldier?”

Jack snorted bitterly. “Every case nine times out of ten involves an ex-soldier. There’s hundreds of us that came back and none of us are the same as when we went. Freddie Ashmead is dying and chances are he shot his best friend because he was getting all his men killed. I understand the provocation completely officers like Roland Claremont got a lot of men killed and the brass did nothing because the wrong people with the rich families got the commissions because back then that was how it was done”

He realised that he was speaking very bitterly again and that his grip on his spoon had nearly bent the silver in half. His hand was shaking again and Ellie who was watching him had said nothing but certainly seen more than she was letting on.

There was a second of silence and then he turned back to his soup and Ellie didn’t bring up the subject of the war again which was good because Jack didn’t think that he could form the right answers to the right questions that didn’t completely terrify her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A week later the case was solved. The charlatan was exposed, the man Miss Fisher had been having sexual relations with (and he wasn’t going to go into the fact that, that made him furious for some unnameable reason) had gone back to whatever hole he had come from, Percy Bishop and Freddie Ashmead had in their own way got their own closure and Maud and the murderer were finally behind bars though he couldn’t blame either one of them for their actions certainly not the one where the officer had been put out of his misery. That alone had saved the lives of God knows how many men.

And Jack was sleeping the night again. Ellie had passed her test with flying colours and was breaking up in a few days for her half term. Jane was preparing for a year traveling around the world (she and Ellie had been closeted together picking out places for the last two weeks) and everything it seemed was back to normal.

“Tough one” Burt said one day where he and Cec ran into Jack as he was in the station and they dropped off Miss Fisher’s statement.

Jack nodded. Between the three of them there was an understanding that Freddie Ashmead could have been them. They had all served in France, they had all known about the gas and the mud and seen the corpses and the rats and fleas and lice that were on their skin and felt like they were in their very bones. They remembered the rain and the snow and the frostbite, the trench-foot and the men that couldn’t survive any longer mentally.

Between the three of them all of this was acknowledged and all of this was recognised in a look. Jack leaned against the wall of the station outside and took Burt’s offer of a cig.

“I haven’t done this since France” he said as the smoke curled around his lungs. “God knows I thought I’d seen enough smoke for my lifetime”

Burt snorted without humour. There was a moment where the three of them, the commo, the warfie and the copper sat there thinking back on those four years where they had seen things that would never go away.

“You know” Cec said finally. “Sometimes when the nights get colder I think it doesn’t matter. Alice moans about putting the heat on but all I can think about is thank god its not as cold as that winter in 1916.”

Jack felt the smoke curl around his mouth and he blew the smoke out so that it added to the air.

“Ellie asks me questions” he said finally. “She asks, she’s curious I get it but…how do I tell her what it was like, how do you put it into words.” He shot the newly married Cec a look. “Wait until you have kids, wait until one of them asks you questions and then see how it turns out when they come to you and ask you what you did in the Great War. Half of Europe’s still a mess”

There was another pause and Burt threw down his cigarette and sighed.

“Well” he said finally. “There’s not going to be another one is there? The world cannot survive that again. We all went and we all fought and we all lost pieces of us over there so that our kids didn’t have to go through it. Can’t imagine your daughter in a red cross uniform wrapping a bandaged around something that used to be a leg. Can’t see the kids that go to school in my street in a trench. That was why we went. So that nobody else would have to go.”

That moment where they stood there seemed to last forever each of them locked in their own memories and then Hugh stuck his head out the door of the station.

“Sir, phone call for you”

Jack sighed throwing the cigarette on the floor and stomping on it, he turned around moment shattered and then he went back to his work, to his life, to the knowledge that he had one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later that night he lay awake in his cold bed, his daughter asleep in the room next to him and tried to shake the feeling that Burt’s remark about their being another war had been a question rather than a true remark. Surely there couldn’t be another war. Surely there couldn’t be, could such a thing happen. Could it?

It was a long time after that thought, that Jack Robinson fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will try and update as soon as I can. 
> 
> Feedback is adoreed.


	12. Blood In The Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Jane prepares to leave for the continent (and Ellie is not jealous not at all) Ellie is invited to come and stay at the sea side. 
> 
> Jack comes along for the sights—and the murder—and is more than a little concerned at the fact that the son of Miss Fisher’s host seems to have his eye on more than the treasure buried beneath the waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter, I worked really hard to get this one up for you guys before the deadlines at uni started so I hope that you enjoy. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Please Read and Review 
> 
> Spelling and grammar are not my strongest suit so please keep that in mind.

Ellie’s bags had been packed and she had in what she thought was a gesture of good will asked her mother to go shopping with her so she could get a new swimsuit. It was a rather good one she had to admit, it was a darkish red with white piping and straps that tied at the back of her neck. It had not been cheap, and her mother had also insisted on taking her out to lunch. It had not been as strange as she thought it would have been and yet at the same time it was as well. They had spoken about school and about her grades and if she had plans for the future which as far as she knew she didn’t and she paused over her lamb and shrugged. It had been both a strange meal, a painful meal and yet she still could laugh and smile as if everything that had happened in the last few months had not happened.

It was a good feeling.

Of course any good feeling was wiped when she was in the car with Miss Fisher who nearly ploughed down a man on her way to the home of her friend. Jane was reading and Dot and Ellie were sharing very little room what with three in the back and all the trunks and suitcases and therefore Ellie was very glad that she was driving quickly because her stomach felt like it was encased in metal she was packed in that tightly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once they had unpacked (and Ellie had seen her nice room overlooking a nice part of the docks and coast) she and Jane put their heads together in the kitchen. Jane was going for a year around the world, fully paid for (not that Ellie was jealous—she was) but Jane had been allowed to pick where she was going to spend the months and she had allowed Ellie to help considering that Ellie who had a list of places she wanted to go when she had enough money and enough time and that Jane wasn’t that good at geography.

They had agreed on Paris, Toronto, Berlin, Rome, Sicily, London, New York and Prague. They were mostly agreed on Turkey but had not narrowed down a city and they had put the Soviet Union in the no pile because while Jane had wanted to go, Ellie had read a newspaper and knew things were a bit more darker over that side of the world that the reports were saying. Also up for consideration was New Zealand, Austria, Amsterdam other parts of America and Canada and Switzerland. Ellie was also pushing some places further away like Palestine but Jane was not sure about that either and the contentious debate continued as they argued and Dot watched reading over a magazine on Canada and shelling peas while the boy who was giving Jane the eye came in and out playing with a dog that had seen better days in Ellie’s eyes.

There was a pause where she sat and looked over the glittering images in the magazine. No doubt Miss Fisher was looking for another mystery but right now she didn’t care. She reached into her bag where she kept her black leather bound notebook she had kept since she had turned thirteen filled with pictures of newspapers articles and glossy magazine images of places she wanted to go and things to do. She called it her dream book.

She fell asleep re-reading an article about Constantinople and woke up that morning to the house bustling having left her alone while she had slept in. She would give Hilly one thing, her beds were extremely comfortable. She stretched as luxuriously as a cat and felt her skin pop a little as her muscles constricted and then released itself.

By the time she was dressed in a nice pale grey skirt that was tightened at the top and flared out a little as it hit her knees and a green polo neck jumper and her boots she came downstairs to the kitchen to see Mr Butler added some mint to what looked like lamb.

“Ah good morning Miss” he said when he saw her and then he passed along what looked like a couple of shrimp rolls and a slice of cheese and onion pie that he had made for lunch. Ellie took it and busied herself in the meal taking time only to down a glass of milk and her tea that was left in the pot to warm.

“What happened?” she asked once she finished. “It’s not exactly warm enough to go sunbathing, even by Miss Fishers standards.”

“Eh no Miss. She’s gone to meet your father at the train station. There’s been a murder down at the beach. Two murders actually”

“She’ll be in her element” was all Ellie said as she finished her tea swirling the last remaining dregs around the cup as she wiped her mouth on the napkin.

“I do hope so” said a voice behind her and she turned to see a very well dressed man standing there his face tanned and in a dark blue suit. He could have passed for a rouge in a bar and Ellie couldn’t help her heart from fluttering a little bit. She wanted to dislike him because a part of his easy charm reminded her of Sidney but at the same time she knew that he wasn’t Sidney.

“Hello” he said as Ellie stood up. “My name is Gerald. I’m Hilly’s son. I don’t believe I had the chance to meet you last night”

“Ellie Robinson”

“Ellie…short for?”

“Eleanor”

“Eleanor—why shorten it, Eleanor is a lovely name. I hear you have been the one helping Jane with her travel plans. I have to admit for someone whose never been out of the country you have a travel bug most explorers don’t have”

Ellie smiled, she couldn’t help it, there was something about his easy charm that made her want to smile at him. There was no trap as there had been with Sidney, no feeling that she was dirty after he had touched her. None (as Phryne Fisher had put it) of that woman’s instinct that she was in danger.

So when he offered her his arm and a walk by the shoreline she accepted.

But she forgot one hidden snag.

Her father. Detective Inspector Jack Robinson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack had been interrogating the fish fry person with Miss Fisher when he saw her. He might have bat signals in the same way the woman next to him did when it came to her. Ellie…his Ellie walking down the sand her hat in her hand and her hair loose arm in arm with a man. For a second the scene was so similar to him and Rosie once upon a long time ago that he had to blink to see what was in front of him. And then he was gone leaving Miss Fisher in the sand though he had no doubt that she had seen the same thing he had seen, his daughter laughing on the arm of a man that he didn’t know.

“Ellie” he said upon reaching her. Oh he hated sand, it was now in his shoe. The only thing he hated more than sand was mud. And this man. Possibly. Probably.

“Hello Dad” she said smiling. “Gerald was just telling me about his time in the Amazon”

Gerald. _Gerald?_ Who the hell was Gerald?

Gerald laughed. “Eleanor has a very strong travel bug, it’s endearing” he said patting her on the arm. Jack had a very strong urge to rip that arm off and whack him over the head with it until he was nothing more than a bloody pulp.

There was a pause where she stood there and he took a deep breath and tried to remember that he was a professional and not a killer. But oh…oh he hoped that he could connect Gerald to this murder.

And he hoped Phryne had a bottle somewhere stashed in her room because he had a feeling that sooner or later he was going to need a very strong drink before he wondered why on earth his daughter was allowing some man to call her by her full name which he had never been allowed to do since she had turned five.

“Ah” he said finally. “Well my daughter is only sixteen.”

Somehow he didn’t think that worked at all and it was only the woman next to him in the sharply cut bob—her hand reaching out for his in order to stop him from doing anything dangerous that managed to get him under control.

Of why that was he didn’t even want to think about. Right now there was a case. He could deal with his daughter later, right now there were two people and a third man who were all dependant on him doing his job and finding out who had condemned them to watery graves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I hate your friend Gerald” Jack said three glasses of champagne later. Phryne watched him and couldn’t help but notice that his hair in this light was a very nice shade of gold and his jaw was chiselled out of pure marble. She looked down at the empty bottle at her feet and she bit her lip, she might have had too much champagne, even for her.

“I know” she said finally. “But your girl is growing up Jack.”

Jack’s face crumpled in an adorable way as he downed another glass of champagne. Phryne had a feeling that unless she stopped a third bottle from opening she was going to tumble into bed with him and that would…well that would be great but in the morning she had a feeling that she would regret it.

“You know” he said finally. “She used to be so sweet. After the war, during the war. She kept me alive Phryne. She kept me alive. Not even Rosie. We married…Rosie and I and then there was Ellie. Ellie was the thing that kept us together after the war. She…well…we had issues”

“There wasn’t a couple that came back after the war that didn’t have issues” she said finally. “I had issues. I had issues, I had a relationship…well you know” she said finally as she saw Jack nod. They both remembered the kiss and the man with the knife and the painting that was hanging on her wall still as if it wasn’t a bold reminder of the bruises she felt had never healed.

Jack nodded. “She used to be so small. I missed it all you know. I missed all of it, her first smile and her first words and her first steps. All for the mud and the blood and the shit of France”

Pointless she thought to tell him to that she had not wanted to go but she’d had no choice. She didn’t have a choice, Jack didn’t have a choice, Burt and Cec didn’t have a choice and all of the men who had died had not had a choice. Jack had been different because he had, had something to live for. She had lost her sister, her relationship with her father was…well…better left unsaid and her mother had been absent for most of her childhood the death of her daughter having caused her to retreat for most of Phryne’s teenage years.

She turned to face him her glass half empty and they were so close that they could have been kissing. They had been in the sea previously, they had been running for their lives more than once, there was something that felt natural with Jack in a way that hadn’t with anyone else and she forced herself to stop because…because…because…

Because she…because if she ruined this, this between the two of them, this solving mysteries and this friendship then she would never forgive herself for. There was enough blood in the water (both literally and figuratively) without her adding to it.

Somethings were right now more important.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As it turned out Jack was right. It had been Gerald.

It had been Gerald from the beginning and as he hugged his daughter and her aunt hugged her friend both of whom had been taken in by the charm of the man who had been travelling the world she found that she couldn’t take her eyes of Jack Robinson until he looked at her and Phryne was suddenly overcome by such a wave of sadness that she couldn’t put her finger on it but at the same time she knew. She knew.

Phryne could only smile hard and brittle. But it was a smile that he didn’t see nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And let me know what you think, I will try and update sooner rather than later. 
> 
> Feedback is adored.


	13. Bonfire On The Vanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fashion model is murdered. 
> 
> Ellie gets a new outfit that’s a little bit different than what she usually wears.
> 
> Dot is having an identity crisis and Jack feels a headache coming on (again) meanwhile Ellie is taken on a day spa and comes home with an interesting perspective on the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter, I hope you all enjoy. 
> 
> In terms of outfit the pants are the ones that Meghan Markle wore when she visited Edinburgh when she was engaged to Prince Harry. The top is a smile black shirt with lace at the top. I hope that clears everything up. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing was mine. 
> 
> Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.

In reality Ellie had not wanted to go. The House of Fleuri was a high upmarket culture house of fashion that Ellie had only ever seen in pages of fancy magazines but the truth of the matter was even if she could have afforded the prices of the dresses there she wouldn’t have gone in. The House of Fleuri was well known for it’s high handedness and the way they treated their staff and also there were rumours that they employed children in their workshops and while that might be a rumour she still took going to the place with a pinch of salt as she stepped in feeling out of place in the glitz and the glamour of the pace. She took the champagne that was offered that she looked around feeling her teeth on edge within five minutes.

If there was one thing that Eleanor Robinson couldn’t stand it was being told what to do. She wasn’t built that way and she could never conform to it either. After sixteen years with pretty independent parents she didn’t think she could change from being the independent woman that she was. It was one thing that she knew about herself and one of the things that she knew she could attribute to being her mother’s daughter.

She had begun looking around at the dresses and she would admit that there was a very pretty yellow one that caught her eye. It was sleeveless with a boat like neckline and a fell to below the knee in one bright yellow piece of fabric and then she had to admit it would be a very pretty colour and there was another one that was white and off the shoulder with stripes. But that wasn’t what made her stop and grin. The small thing at the back was wrapped another dress as if the horrifying emerald green dress that was covered in fur was trying to block it out.

It was something that she had never seen before. It was a long black silky top that had two tiny straps and had lace decorating the top and next to it was a long pair of black pants that clinched at the waist and were high waisted. The pants had flares at the end so that her shoes would be slightly covered and the top of the trousers had gold buttons, six, three on each side where her hips would be facing outwards and before the mistress of the house could swoop down on her she took both the jumper (made of the silkiest fabric she had ever seen that she knew was going to keep her warm regardless) and she took her champagne into the dressing room with her.

She had some money and even if she was told that the dress (or the not dress) as it turned out was going to be paid for she still liked to think of herself as able to buy her own clothes and then she pulled on the pants and camisole. It had just the right amount of daring and respect for her she thought. She wouldn’t be arrested if she was caught wearing it in public of course but it was unlike anything else that she had ever seen before let alone wear. In fact she couldn’t remember if she had ever wore trousers before this but she had to admit that these made her legs go on for miles. All it needed was a really good hat she thought and so she stepped out of the dressing room.

Miss Fisher was in the process of trying on some green dress with a fur of some animal that for all Ellie knew looking at it could probably be extinct. Dot was stood next to her looking out of place in a rather nice pink shirt but a rather dreary brown suit. She raised her eyebrows when she saw Ellie who shrugged. She didn’t need a women like Madame Fleuri approval for her to buy something. Not to sound ungrateful but she had hardly screamed out loud when she had heard that they were going to the fashion house of hell.

“Nice Ellie” the woman said turning around emeralds sparkling off her dress. “That makes you look really tall and the camisole makes you look so much older”

Ellie somehow didn’t think her Dad would see it that way but she grinned and before Madame Fleuri could arrive and lecture her for picking something that was probably her sister’s collection (because Ellie had heard rumours of a feud between the two of them—the last collection had been dreadful according to a girl that she knew in her school who was always draped in something new who had delighted in telling everyone. Instead she moved back outside to go and look through the hat collection.

She had just found a wide brimmed black felt one with a cord of black in a bow around the bottom when there was a scream. She turned around but her instincts—honed by the last seven months in the company of Phryne Fisher told her what she was going to see.

She was right. Pushing back the bathroom door to see an aghast Dot she saw the dead body of…well…someone sprawled out on the bathroom floor. There was a long pause where nobody spoke. The women on either side of her were stuck in aghast horror. Ellie stared at the body for a second—it was the first time she had ever seen one, all the other times she had arrived at a crime scene the body had been covered up. She paused looking down and then she turned to the stunned Madame Fleuri.

“Do you have a phone? I think I might need to ring my father”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie met them at the door. She was dressed in a pair of long pants and a shirt that personally if Jack had his way he would never see again. It was lacey and had two tiny straps keeping it up and was made of black silk. To be honest he was surprised she was wearing it because as far as he was concerned such a thing looked like underwear.

“Is that really what you chose to buy darling?” he said resisting the urge to throw his jacket around her. Ellie looked up through her dark hair and smiled and Jack had to shut his jaw shut because she was looking more and more like a desirable woman and that was something he didn’t want to think about.

“Really?” Ellie grinned back. “A woman’s just been murdered and your going to tell me that what I wear is inappropriate? Christ Phryne’s got half a forest slung on her chest” she frowned and Jack mentally told himself to get a grip and focus on his job and not wonder when his daughter had started calling Miss Fisher by her first name and also not to think of her chest.

Get a grip Robinson.

“Since when were you against fur?” he asked.

“Always” Ellie said. “I don’t think you should skin animals. Besides I read a newspaper article on it. You know after this car race thing coming up every local councillor is going to run”

Jack did know that but he had no idea how his daughter did. Rosie might argue politics till the sun rose but…were they back to talking on stuff like that again?”

“Mum” was all Ellie said and then she turned around and led both him and Hugh up the stairs to the main sitting room where everyone had gathered and he could start his job. At this point he supposed it might be best that his father in law got Miss Fisher a badge. Would make the time he spent telling her not to bother getting involved in his cases easier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again she found herself with Miss Fisher at a day spa with the ever quiet Dot. Ellie didn’t mind a manicure but she did mind being stuck in a room with the most vainest members of Melbourne Society. She didn’t realise until this very moment how lucky she had, had it with Miss Stanley. Prudence might be a bit stuffy and a bit old fashioned but she was most certainly not like Melba Cruise. Within seconds of the woman talking Ellie wanted to dunk her several times in the flavoured water and tell her that while she was moaning about appointments and sapphires half of the country was probably earning just enough to pay rent and put food on the table.

She looked away and felt rather irritated. The House of Fleuri had a reputation of treating people badly and yet it was still the in place to go. Melba Cruise was a spoilt brat who had never had to do a day’s work in her life and a murder seemed the last thing everyone was thinking off.

“So why did you bring the policemen’s daughter?” Melba Cruise asked Phryne, Ellie turned her head and shot the woman such a look that Melba Cruise actually took a step back. Ellie who had tried to recreate the look that her mother had shot a woman in the street one who had called her an adulterous whore (and while it might have been what Ellie was thinking she had been on her mother’s side then because who was that woman to judge when she knew nothing?) felt rather pleased with herself.

Phryne sat up and smiled her smile as sweet as poisoned milk. “Because she’s my friend” she said without missing a beat.

“Yes but…she’s a policemen’s daughter”

For once though Ellie had the right response to this because she had been with Burt and Cec this morning in the kitchen and they knew Melba Cruises son and had told her with the sneer what he was.

“You know my father fought in France” she said sweetly. “For four years in the mud and oh yes, yours only fought in 1919? Isn’t it true that your husband paid to keep him out of the Army until you knew it had ended? I wonder how many votes he’d get this election if people knew that? You know, ordinary common people who were bogged down in that mud while your son was dry, like policemen?”

There was a deadly silence broken only by Miss Fisher who suddenly snorted and only managed to turn it into a cough at the last minute. Melba Cruise had gone white but she couldn’t say anything because it was true. She swept off and Ellie went back to looking at the nail varnish. She thought however she had seen much in that moment. High society was a bit like a wheel and judging by the woman who were all smiling she had just knocked Melba Cruise off the top. On and on it would spin but she thought in that moment she knew about vanity and falseness in a way she had never known before.

“Besides” she said to Miss Fisher. “If you want to look at anyone look at the sister. Everyone knows that they hate each other. The two of them fought like cats and dogs over the last catalogue and if the partner dies then she can step in and start controlling her own interests. Maybe they can lose the reputation for being horrible to anyone customer that doesn’t pull in a check of two thousand a year”

Judging by the look of surprise on Phryne’s face at that she thought perhaps everyone had not known that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie had spent the night at Miss Fisher’s. Jack had asked Phryne if she could stay and she had said yes and a lot of it was because he didn’t want his daughter alone in his house if this undercover night thing turned out to be a bad idea.

As it turned out Miss Fisher was right but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

They broke the case around dawn and Miss Fisher over tea and toast was telling him about Ellie’s outfit that she had bought and the yellow dress that might be a good idea for Christmas and affordable know that the House of Fleuri was going into off the rack fashion (whatever that was)

At the end of their impromptu breakfast Jack walked her to the door of the station.

“Goodbye Miss Fisher” he said finally.

“You know you could call me Phryne” she said frowning. “I think we’ve moved past that you know”

“I suppose so…Phryne” he answered with a smile. She flashed him another brilliant one and then turned to go out the door. Jack paused leaning against the desk an idea in his mind that he wasn’t sure weather or not he should act on.

Would it be such a bad idea if he finally moved on from the sixteen years of marriage and the mother of his child?

Would it?

Could he?

He knew the answer. The answer was yes. But with the right woman.

And the problem was he knew who that was.

Now just to tell Ellie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will try and update as soon as I can. I will hopefully update once more and then I will probably do a mass update of two or three chapters before Christmas. 
> 
> As always feedback is adored.


	14. Let Her Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack is once again embroiled in a case which involves his ex wife. 
> 
> Phryne sees more of Ellie in her mother than she wants to, and during a case involving a distraught father and football Jack learns that eventually all girls have to grow up. 
> 
> Somewhat appallingly short.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter and should be followed by another chapter, I apologise for the lateness of the chapter but I had the dreaded Christmas cold followed by a nightmare with my computer so here is a chapter and another one should be following to make up for it. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think 
> 
> Spelling and grammar are not my strongest suit so please keep that in mind. 
> 
> And enjoy.

The following morning Jack was eating breakfast, Ellie on the other end of the table reading when the phone rang. Jack looked up as she did. He wasn’t surprised there were only two reasons why his phone could be ringing on his day off and both would involve murder. He stood up wincing as he took his bare feet of the chair and felt them on the cold tiles of his kitchen floor.

It wasn’t work however and it wasn’t even Phryne.

It was Burt.

And just like that Jack’s happy mood evaporated.

He came back to the table after a ten minute discussion with Burt which had turned into a row about football (and Jack had his opinions on Harry Harper as did the next man who loved the game but he also had a job to do—no good weasel) and that job was to investigate the weas—no the man’s death.

Yeah that was what he was going to do.

“Harry Harper just died in the changing room with a West Melbourne scarf tied around his neck” he said to Ellie as he came back into the room. Ellie looked at him marking her page in her book.

“Who’s Harry Harper?”

“The football player dear”

“Was he very good?”

Was he very good? Jack closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again and when he spoke it was through slightly gritted teeth-of course the one thing he and Rosie had enjoyed in their marriage was football—naturally Ellie had to be indifferent to it.

“Yes darling he was…very good”

He should never let her around Burt when it came to the football season he decided.

“So what’s the big deal if he’s hung himself with the other team’s scarf. Did he lose a match?”

Jack forced himself not to sound condescending. He took a deep breath and imagined punching Sidney Fletcher in the mouth (regardless of his feelings towards Rosie—or his lack of them he still hated the man) and once he had calmed down he opened his eyes and unglued his mouth.

“Something like that. Look it’s too hard to explain right now I’ve got to go. I’ll try and make it home for dinner but if not don’t worry alright. Also…a lot of people are going to be upset about this so please stay safe and away from large crowds. Actually I’m gonna ask Burt to pick you up from school…or Cec…providing their still speaking to each other at the end of the day”

“Why would they…? Oh football ok” Ellie said turning back to her book. Jack shook his head torn between amusement and exasperation and went to go and get dressed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was right, by the time he got to a changing room there was already a crowd of the usual football rabble rousers and Jack knew there was going to be trouble tonight when the pubs opened and the beer was flowing. Great. Looks like he wouldn’t be making it home to dinner tonight either. And he was looking forward to the steak he had got at the somewhat better knock down price as well .

Typical.

And Phryne was there as well.

Wonderful.

Somewhere, in some past life Jack surmised he must have really pissed off God and he was giving his past self his comeuppance in this life.

Sidestepping the usual shouts that West Melbourne were going to get their day (and it wasn’t like whenever there was a match he didn’t hear them) and there was a pause where he stood there taking in what had been one of the greatest players in Australia hanging naked by the team scarf he had sold out.

Jack sighed. Already he could feel a headache coming on and that was before he got to the office and dealt with the headaches that would be coming from the brass. God knows his father in law was a lifelong fan of the very team whose scarf he was holding in his hands.

Miss Fisher was flirting around claiming that she had something to do with a lucky hat. And not just a lucky hat. _The_ lucky hat. Everyone knew about that hat. It was urban legend in Melbourne even if you did think it was a load of rubbish which Jack did by the way because on more than one occasion that hat had not won a match.

He stepped out into the sunlight and then resisted stomping his foot again. Stan Baines had just shown up and that was a shot across the bow if ever there was one even for an occasion like this. Either Stan Baines was very stupid or very brave and either way Jack didn’t know nor did he care to find out. All he wanted to do was go back to the Station before the pubs opened and it would become difficult to do any investigating without being accused of taking sides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phryne had not really intended to go to Rosie…was it still Robinson or had she gone back to Sanderson after the divorce? Well either way she was not trying to poke her nose around the woman’s house. Just the murder case. Funerals were always good for stuff like that she thought bitterly. You could get someone drunk enough on grief and champagne and you could get them to spill their guts once the other person was dead.

This was the house that Rosie owned on her own. In her own right like Phryne did. Phryne thought (and she was more than a little smug about it in her own head) that her house was nice and far more grander but she supposed that might just be taste. There were several pictures of Ellie and Jack on the mantlepiece-clearly the woman had tried to keep her ex-husband alive in her home for the sake of his daughter and the furniture was nice. The kitchen had all the latest appliances, the drapes were soft to the touch. Phryne who knew and respected quality as someone who had grown up with nothing couldn’t fault the house whatsoever, even the hardwood floors were sharply polished.

It was like Rosie Sanderson was made for hosing parties which was strange to her because Jack was most certainly not the definition of a social climber in the slightest. She thought somewhat bitterly that even Aunt Prudence would struggle to find fault in Rosie Sanderson’s home.

She was distracted momentarily from her investigation however by the image on the mantle. It was Jack tucked away at the back in his service uniform. She stared at it for a second, it was certainly taken pre his deployment, nobody that came home on shore leave (if they were lucky) looked like that after two months either at Gallipoli or in France. He looked…younger she thought.

“Didn’t we all look younger back then Miss Fisher” said a voice to her left and she whirled around on one heel to see the woman herself standing there. Phryne realised she either spoke out loud or Rosie had seen the look on her face when the war was mentioned. She managed a small smile but there was something about the way the woman held herself, back straight, head held high and her hands linked and resting in front of her that was so like her daughter that it made Phryne pause. There were a lot of things that Rosie Sanderson had passed down to her daughter come to think of it.

She had never really thought of that. To her Ellie had always seemed like Jack’s daughter and it was hard reconciling the girl that was so free when she was with her father to the girl who was when she was with her mother. There was a pause where she stood there on the edge of saying something that she knew she was going to regret and then the waiter happened. Some poor inexperienced waiter had dropped the ice bucket on the floor during a conversation. He swore (not at all polite for Melbourne’s sporting society said a voice that sounded suspiciously like her Aunt Prudence in her head) and then she the cogs were turning in her head over what had happened in that changing room and why there were blisters on the feet of the man that had betrayed one team and then lost games for another.

Football. She did understand Dot and Ellie’s indifference. Somehow she couldn’t help but feel that it was responsible for a lot and yet at the same time she couldn’t help but think there was something else to this case. Something that she couldn’t put her finger on. It made no sense for one of the players to go to this extreme and yet at the same time it made no sense to her.

She sighed looking over at Jack trying to conform to his ex wife’s new friends and she felt a surge of anger that came when she saw a woman like Rosie Sanderson who had, had a man like Jack who was pure gold and had thrown it away for a man like Sidney Fletcher who as far as she was concerned was nothing short of a common mixture of pewter and lead. She bit her lip feeling the sting of her teeth catch the flesh and tried to remind herself that she did not have the best reputation herself. The last thing she should be doing was judging another woman for simply being herself.

Phryne gave a long sigh and then she was gone out of the red bricked house that was so like and yet so unlike her own and down the steps determined to find the answers to the mystery that was confounding her.

The football related one you know.

Not the other one.

You know, the one that involved Jack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stan Baines was in lock up and the case was closed. Another successful mystery solved by him and Miss Fisher. It had all been neatly wrapped in a bow and he had to admit it was becoming all too easy to consider her a partner in his cases. He was beginning to wonder weather or not he was ever going to be able to work on cases with just Hugh again.

The reality was that Jack should be glad that he had broken the case with only two bodies and only one person in the lock up. Considering the football grounds and their rivalries and the upcoming clash between both teams he was amazed that the peace had held for as long as it had.

Jack should be glad that it was over. He should be glad as he walked home from the football match having seen Sidney escort Rosie to the car and then he had done the same with Miss Fisher…with Phryne. Damn it he was really going to have to get used to saying her first name. Either way the match was over and he had a long weekend ahead of him. He bit his bottom lip again.

There was something about Stan Baines though he thought as he walked the short journey from the car to his house. There was something about this that he couldn’t put his finger on. It wasn’t the fact that Stan Baines was unrepentant of what he had done—the Lord knew he wasn’t the first murderer in Jack’s career that had claimed his actions were justified. So why did this one get to him? Why did this one make him want to go back to the station and let Stan Baines know that he didn’t deserve the fate that was awaiting him.

He stepped into his house and knew immediately why.

Mayra Haines could have been Ellie in a couple of years time. She had been young and in love and romantic and silly as teenagers were and it had cost her, her life and broken her father’s heart. Perhaps he would claim mental insanity when it came to the trial but he had to admit that he wanted the man to get off. He understood when he walked into his house and he bit his bottom lip again seeing Ellie on the small sofa her body small and curled in on itself. She had clearly been reading and had fallen asleep her hair sticking to her face and her cheek crumpled against the pillow. There was a pause where he stood there and took her in and he realised that he understood, wholly and completely why Stan Baines had gone after the men who had hurt his daughter.

Because there was a feeling when someone went after their child. That you would do anything to protect that child and then when you lost that child…well Jack could understand it. It was odd, this was the first time that this had happened and it was not like this was the first case that he had where he had seen this happen. A parent taking revenge for the child.

This was just the first time that he understood it. Because Mayra could have been his daughter, she could have been in a situation so desperate she couldn’t see her way out of it and she could have died without her father knowing the truth sending him quite mad.

Ellie turned around in her sleep and Jack sighed taking his hat and coat off and wandering in search of the scotch bottle. He had a feeling that tonight he would not be dreaming of Phryne Fisher (who had now had a strange habit of cropping up in his dreams for reasons he didn’t want to name) but off his daughter both before France, now and in between the then and the now. Perhaps there was something to the saying that war was easier than raising daughters? Perhaps? Was such a thing possible? Jack had served after all, after the mess that was 1916 he didn’t think anything could be worse than that. Had he found that one thing? Loss? Losing Ellie? It was unbearable to think off.

Ellie slept, Jack didn’t. He didn’t condone what Stan Baines had done but that night as he bunched the sheets around him to try and keep away the chill that seemed to get worse when his thoughts were dark he had to admit that he understood.

By God did he understand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is adored.


	15. Women Transform The World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phryne takes part in a road race. 
> 
> Hugh is actually a hell of a lot smarter than he appears. 
> 
> Dot is Russian for a few weeks, Jack lives, loves and loses. 
> 
> Ellie sees the chance of a different life for herself and when it comes down to the priorities in his life Jack has a choice to make for the sake of his own sanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, again for reasons noted in the previous chapter this is appallingly short but I hope you all enjoy it nonetheless. I will try and update before the New Year but If I don't I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a very happy and safe 2019. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Please Read and Review.

The phone call came early on in the morning. Ellie who had been on her way to school (and running slightly late too boot) reached for a piece of toast and the butter knife to eat on the way to the bus station when her Dad picked up the phone.

She turned around to say goodbye and then the words died in her throat. Her Dad’s expression was something so uncharacteristically sad that she found she couldn’t put it into words. Something had happened, someone had died and she racked her brains trying to think of who.

Her Dad’s parents were both dead one before the war and one immediately after it, he had no other siblings and that just left…

“Is it Grandpa George?”

Her Dad blinked as if trying to understand where her jumbled question to his unspoken words then shook his head slowly as if he was underwater.

“No and it’s not your mother either…” he said as if he knew that, that would be her next question. But I have to go Eleanor. Please stay home tonight and I will tell you the news when I get home”

And it was the use of her full name that frightened her more than anything she had heard before. Her Dad never called her that unless he was angry at her and she could count the amount of times that had happened on one hand. She stood there watching him leave and then decided that she was not going to school. No way was she going to be able to concentrate with what was going on but she would listen to him and stay behind and wait. There wasn’t much she could do but she could do that.

And so she folded her legs under herself and waited.

She was waiting for a very long time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her Dad did indeed come back at the early hours supported by Hugh Collins who was looking rather abashed.

“Sorry Miss Robinson—err—Ellie…he err…well I’ve never seen him like that before, it’s just bizarre. He was like a ghost when I showed him the body and then Miss Fisher arrived and then he came back to the station opened the bottle and went for it.”

Ellie took a look at her Dad taking in the fact that he was clearly worse for wear. The fact that his tie was half undone and that in this light he looked more like a teenager rather than a Detective Inspector in charge of a murder case.

What the fuck had set this off?

“Hugh what happened?” she asked opening her door slightly and directing Hugh towards her Dad’s bedroom. They managed to get his shoes and tie off and he fell asleep on the bed. Hugh came back out looking sheepish and Ellie thought it was only good manners to offer him a cup of strong coffee if he was still on shift. He took it and some bread and jam with glee.

“Well that’s the thing Ellie I don’t know. I got a call this morning from Miss Fisher telling me that a Miss Gertrude Haynes was dead—”

“Wait the race car driver?” Ellie cut across him. She had read something about that in the paper. About the female driver and the female partner Alisa she had that owned the garage and had a daughter but had never been married. They were trying to go up against Lachlan Pepper one of the most sexist men in Australia as far as she was concerned to get women in the VAA. She knew this because she had been interested by the idea. A woman running a buisness in her own right with a child in her own right not dependant on anyone. Ailsa Wilson was a woman that she could respect, a woman that had carved her own path in the world like Miss Fisher…like her mum in a way.

A woman that Ellie wanted to be. Strong, indomitable and unbreakable.

Hugh nodded and Ellie focused her attention on him.

“Yeah. So I rang the Inspector and told him and he turns up like he’s just been told that war’s broken out again and then low and behold he doesn’t even know her! He thinks it’s an accident because Miss Haynes has a reputation for driving fast when she’s not on the race course and then Miss Fisher turns up determined to prove it’s murder and instead of rising to the bait he just walks off and leaves her there”

Ellie raised an eyebrow adding more sugar to her coffee. Since she had known Miss Fisher she had never seen her father walk away from her no matter how stressful he found her presence. In fact nine times out of ten he took her ideas on board regardless. There was something she was missing here of that she was sure of that.

“And then?” she asked.

“Came back to the station and opened the bottle. Miss Fisher came into speak to him—she’s convinced this is murder but he just ignored her. She came out looking hurt ten minutes later but you know what she’s like. Snapped that she wasn’t staying and then walked off. I thought I should get him home before someone comes in so I got a relief constable to cover me.” He shrugged again. “It happens, we have a code we don’t tell on the bosses. We all have our own ways of working providing we don’t break any rules I couldn’t let him drive so I called a friend down and he’s minding the station. I have to get back soon, my shift doesn’t end until the morning”

Ellie nodded taking that in.

“Was she murdered Hugh? Or is this Miss Fisher who drives like a maniac trying to prove that bad driving doesn’t get the better of people?”

Hugh shrugged. “Certain points she makes make sense. Her scarf is clean for example and there are bruises on her neck that Doctor MacMillan is sure were caused by strangulation but the coroner is sure it’s impact. Either way it’s a clash and with Mac knowing the victim her opinion won’t weigh much. Also there are suspects I suppose but no glaringly obvious motive other than a race and nobody but Miss Fisher seems to think that is important. There was no hard evidence she was going to win and wouldn’t it be easier to sabotage the car rather than kill the driver? Bits of this don’t make sense and yet bits of it do and I don’t know which way to investigate. If this is an accident there’s no point and yet I cannot go to Dotty with this because she firmly believes Miss Fisher even though she knows how she drives”

He shook his head again and Ellie took on bored all this information and more. She paused taking another mouthful of bread.

“You need him in the morning?” she asked Hugh knew who she was taking about instantly.

“Yes” he said taking in a deep breath. “We need to know how to investigate. And I don’t want to tell Miss Fisher that she’s wrong. Dot doesn’t think she is.” He said that like it was the end of the matter but Ellie knew Miss Fisher wasn’t infallible. The woman had been wrong before about many different issues including suspecting her cousin Arthur of murder and Ellie thought that perhaps she had pushed a bit too much when her Grandfather was under investigation.

“Alright Hugh thanks for stopping by. Here you can take some coffee with you”

Hugh looked pathetically pleased by that but as he took his leave Ellie suspected that Hugh might not be as baby faced as he looked. Certainly he seemed to have an idea of what was going on more than she did. She sighed turning back to the table. The problem was she thought that regardless of the fact that she did like Phryne and she did trust her, Ellie was too much a Daddy’s girl to take anyone’s side but her Dads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning Jack woke with a headache that hurt more than that first night of liberty in Paris and to find a note on the table telling him his daughter had gone out for the day.

Wonderful.

He should get up to go to the station because that was his job but he thought it might be best to sleep a little bit first. He had been a constable once. He appreciated the code that the younger men had amongst themselves. He just never expected himself to be a part of it.

He should recommend Hugh for something he thought sleepily. The man really was quite good at his job.

Sleep, Hugh and then the racetracks he thought finally before sleep did eventually claim him. That was all that he could do. That was far more easier than thinking over the reason why he was in this mess in the first place anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phryne was furious. Lachlan Pepper was a creep who needed a good dose of reality (or castration) in her opinion, Dot was only just playing her role, God knows what would happen if they had to go through with this race because she was pretty sure Lachlan would have her licence stripped if he caught her and more to the point she wasn’t sure how much influence she had left. Most of it had gone on trying to keep Murdoch Foyle where he was and she’d had more than her fair run ins with the press and the politicians since then. Studiously she did not think of the Imperial Club.

To cap matters off Jack was still refusing to believe that this was murder despite Mac telling him otherwise. The whole thing was incredibly frustrating because she didn’t understand what had caused it. Jack was generally so well put together when stuff like this happened and he at the very least listened to her regardless. Ailsa was not making things easier either because why when she was on the precipice of getting everything she and Gerty had worked for was she walking away now? Even Millie understood what was going on though she was willing to bet Jack had terrified the poor child out of her mind the other day.

That was another thing, since when was Jack aggressive with people he didn’t know were responsible? Millie was just a child and more to the point she had not known what was going to happen, if anything she had been irresponsible but not guilty. She was strangled after all. Even if Jack didn’t think of it like that.

She stepped out into the sunlight and then paused. Ellie Robinson was crossing the space between them and she was attracting a few fair looks in doing so.

She had dressed in her long pants and boots and a black jumper her dark hair in a low bun under her hat. She looked far older than sixteen. Phryne smiled.

“What the hell happened between you and Dad?” she asked when she got close tilting her head to the side.

Oh fuck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack supposed he did owe his daughter an explanation. Again here he was in the same situation as Stan Baines emphasising with a killer. Alisa Wilson had done nothing he supposed that he would have done if Ellie had been in Millie’s place. Gertrude Haynes both in life and in death had a lot to answer for. How Phryne had been friends with someone like that—someone who was prepared to ruin a child’s life after she had already discarded her like a bad meal was beyond him. Selfish.

Ellie however he owed an explanation no matter how painful it was. He and Phr…no Miss Fisher’s partnership was at an end because he could not go through another week like this one. He had let that damn woman get close and now he was paying the price. How he had thought after the fuck up that was the ending of his marriage he could be happy again he didn’t know.

He had Ellie, Ellie had been salvaged from the mangled deal and that had to be enough. He shook his head as he reached for his keys. No that was enough. He knew that. Jack knew that. Always, time and time again his daughter had been enough.

Ellie was waiting for him. She had been at the race but had disappeared soon after it had run a curl of her lip telling her what she thought of Millie. No doubt she had gotten the full story out of someone. Two girls who were the same age with the same ideas about the woman they wanted to be who had gone about it in completely different ways. Millie had nearly killed someone, hell if Alisa Wilson had not got their first then she probably would have done and Ellie couldn’t understand or relate to that. Jack knew his daughter well. She didn’t like anything that hurt people for selfish gains. God knows she had not got that from her mother—the scars from that were ingrained too deep. Rosie had done a number and Millie Wilson or Haynes or whatever her name was now had nearly killed someone just to prove a point.

Yeah his daughter wouldn’t have been impressed with that.

If she had he’d have been a little more worried and a little bit less heartbroken.

She was still in her long trousers and her hat was on her lap. She raised one eyebrow at him and Jack sighed.

Time to face the music.

Tomorrow would be a new day he thought, a day without… _her_ …

Who was he kidding anyway? War he thought as he set down his coat and hat and prepared to tell his daughter that he was no longer…well he didn’t know because they had never been anything had they?

Well he was going to tell his daughter something at least, and then he was going to acknowledge the fact that the war had been easier than women. Especially women like Miss Fisher.

And if he was upset tonight, well…nobody was seeing past his bedroom door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is always welcomed.


	16. Allow Me To Re-Introduce Myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie is caught between Jack and Phryne’s fight leading to some own harsh words being said. 
> 
> Jack is embroiled in a case that involves a somewhat strange girl and Ellie loses her temper resulting in a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I apologise for the lateness of this chapter but I have been working like mad on my dissertation and therefore updates for the next few months might be a bit slower. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Please Read and Review. 
> 
> Spelling and Grammar are not my strongest suit please keep that in mind.

The two weeks following the whole conflict between her friend and her father had been something terrible for Ellie. Honestly living with her father had not been fun at all when it came to that. He had gone from being his usual cheerful self to being a complete nightmare to live with. Ellie knew what was going on—she also knew what side she was going to be on. That was the easy part. But she still felt guilty for it. Phryne was her friend.

The weeks carried on however mostly as normal. Ellie was going to school—finals were beginning to dominate the topic of the day and revision was going to dominate her home life as well. Certain topics she wasn’t bothered about—English she was good at having always liked books and she had quite a good grasp of the modern languages taught at her school—enough to bluff her way through a conversation at the very least and then there was always history that she loved and could chat about for days.

But then there was as Ellie called them ‘The Dark Subjects’. These included math, science (chemistry and physics) specifically and of course her cross country run that for some reason counted towards something. The last one she was not going to pass which was good because you only needed one bad one and a lot of good grades in her opinion. Geography she was quite good at as well if only for the fact that she wanted to travel—she was easily board by anything that had to do with the Earth’s core and as much as she didn’t want to tell Dot this the concept of religion did nothing for her either. It was an exam. She passed it she was done for a year. Another year and she was done with school altogether and she was counting down the days to that with barely disguised glee.

She was surprised rather than any other emotion when Elizabeth MacMillan called her to come to the University after school. She had no intention of becoming a doctor nor did she think the good doctor was the type to teach—at least not sober to tell the truth. So she got dressed in her knee length beige skirt and her black high necked jumper and pulled her hair into a knot on the top of her head and pulled on her boots the little ankle ones that she saved for more important events and then took the walk to the university.

The university was teaming with students. She saw the police car outside and paused. She had a feeling that she was in the middle of something but if she didn’t know better then she would have thought it would have been a intervention where she had to go to University something she had not made or even started a conversation about it and it was getting to her. Also she knew bullies and rich kids when she saw them and this school was teaming with them.

Apparently it was teaming with strange ones as well because as she approached the office where Doctor Mac was she saw Phryne and a girl with their heads against the wall which was…strange…even by her standards.

She shook her head and forced herself into the bigger room with students trying to pretend like she belonged here which considering the fact that she didn’t she felt was obvious—age alone excluded her from some of these students. She had only to take one step into the room however when a hand sneaked out and pulled her into the corner.

It was the good doctor herself who looked harried and more than a little tired though considering the police presence Ellie supposed that might have something to do with whatever was going on (she was suddenly aware that she had absolutely no idea why she had been called here in the first place) and then they were gone.

“Oh it’s been terrible” she said pulling Ellie into a corner. “It’s been terrible and I’ve only been around them for an hour and a half. Believe me It’s not the best situation calling you in but I thought you could take Jack and then I could take Phryne in a room and then we could force them into a room and lock them together until they sort out their differences” she nodded as if this plan was the only thing keeping her attached to her sanity. Ellie took a deep breathe and reminded herself that Elizabeth MacMillan was a good person and not deserving of her sarcasm and her temper.

There was a pause where she stood there and then she opened her eyes again.

“You called me down here at eight in the morning on a Saturday because you don’t know what to do with my Dad and your best friend?”

“Well when you put it like that then fair enough but we both know that something has to be done, it’s been a nightmare. Jack’s looking at all the wrong people and he doesn’t quite yet understand Beatrice Mason who is…well a guess a little strange if you don’t know her but still.”

Ellie followed all of that nodding her head as if to go through the motions but the truth was she understood nothing that the woman was saying—all she wanted to do was go back to bed and pretend that her exams were not coming up in a few weeks time and that she still had so much to do in order to pass them.

“Look” she said finally. “I’m on my Dad’s side”

Mac gave her a long look.

“Even when you think he’s in the wrong?”

“I don’t think he’s wrong” Ellie said carefully. “Miss Fisher does drive like she hasn’t a care in the world after all and even I know that that attitude is going to get someone killed sooner or later”

The doctor looked surprised and Ellie shrugged. The driving thing she did get because getting in a car with Miss Fisher had always been enough to turn her off the idea of driving all together and anyway she had stated from the beginning that she was too much her Dad’s daughter to take any side that wasn’t his. Look at the divorce for example if you will she thought to herself shaking her head and feeling her hair shift a little.

“Look” the Doctor said finally shaking off her surprise “You and I both know that crimes in this town are solved a hell of a lot quicker—and I do say that with reverence—when the two of them are working together. And if you can help get that juice flowing again then will you please do so because otherwise they are going to make me book myself for murder before the end of the night is out”

And with that she turned and walked away leaving Ellie with the knowledge that she shouldn’t have even gotten out of bed this morning. After all what did she know about a relationship? Never mind one as complex as the one her father had with Phryne. I mean…she didn’t even know if it was a relationship did she? And it wasn’t like she could ask now. Honestly. This whole thing was more trouble than it was worth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two days later she decided to go over to Miss Fisher’s place because the reality of the situation was that she was curious about the murder. There was always something to arouse her curiosity when it came to murder investing her time in it. Not in any way shape or form like a career but just as something to pass the time. She was curious and also she was in need (though she loathed to admit it even to herself) of help because her first final was coming up in a week and she was not in the slightest bit as prepared for her languages one as she should be and therefore she needed Miss Fisher who spoke about three to take a look at her essay.

There was a pause where she stood there. She had come in through the back door and she dropped her hat on the table. The dining room table was covered in notes of some religious books and there was a page that old enough to be from the original copy. She bent over and a curl of her hair fell from one shoulder onto the table and therefore the manuscript page. For a second she stared at it—her Latin was more terrible than her maths and that was saying something. She paused and then something hit her from the side and she went down in a tangle of a chair that banged against her knee. Ellie forced herself up and crouched down ready to fight—she knew how to fight after all. The woman was stuffing her papers into her folder with a somewhat manic look on her face—clearly she was going to give Ellie a second thought and that made her suddenly furious.

“Oi” she shouted and the woman turned just as Ellie tackled her. She crashed into the side of the woman who screeched and then grabbed a hunk of Ellie’s hair. Ellie elbowed her in the face in response (her knee was killing now) and then the girl started shouting at the top of her lungs something about a damn book.

Then she felt someone pull her back and she turned to see Mr Butler with an expression of resigned surprise as he puled her off the girl. Miss Fisher had also had come in and was helping the other girl to her feet which Ellie thought was rather unfair considering she had been the one to start all of this but then again when had her life ever been fair?

“She’s fucking bonkers” she said finally. Swearing out loud was not something she usually indulged in but she felt considering she had been attacked without warning like it was warranted.

“She’s not bonkers” Miss Fisher said shaking her head. “She’s Beatrice”

“She attacked me!” Ellie shouted. “Like seriously she attacked me. I was looking at that damn piece of paper and she ran at me like a wounded bull.”

“Look, Beatrice is a little…shaken right now—” but Ellie was already cutting her off.

“Phryne she attacked me. And I’m your friend. And she attacked me”

“Ellie—” but she already knew that she was getting nowhere with this and she was too angry to concentrate so she pushed herself away from Mr Butler grabbed her hat and got out of there while she still had her dignity—and Beatrice Mason still had her teeth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack had found out about the whole fight thing because Phryne had told him with a somewhat apologetic glance. Jack had been somewhat resigned but also a little proud and came home to find Ellie stirring some stew on the hob with an expression that reminded him of Rosie so much so he had to stop himself from recoiling on the step of his house.

“If your going to yell at me don’t bother” she said finally. “I was provoked. Mostly. Felt good though” That last part was muttered and Jack wisely decided not to comment on it whatsoever. The least he knew the better—the last thing he needed was another complicated case involving his daughter and Beatrice Mason—not excluding Miss Fisher as well.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked finally. Ellie paused and then shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about anything. I…” she looked at him then and there was something in her face that reminded Jack of the night that she had found out that he and Rosie were getting separated. She looked so impossibly young in that moment that it was all he could do not to leap out of his chair and rush to hug her.

“Were alright aren’t we Dad?”

There was something more to this he knew but Jack was too tired and had been through the ringer emotionally to do anything but offer her the tired smile that he had been adopting the last few days.

“We always are sweetheart”

That at least was one truth he could stick too. Unconditionally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you go let me know what you think and I will hopefully update soon. Thank you all for sticking in with this story in the meantime. 
> 
> Feedback is adored.


	17. Fates Worse Than Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some time has passed. Jack and Phryne have made up, Ellie and Phryne have a conversation that details everything about marriage the two of them know.
> 
> Hugh and Dot are engaged. Ellie acknowledges to herself that she worries about her father getting shot on the job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, here is another chapter. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy. My views In this chapter on Dot and Hugh are completely my own. I like the character but I found her really annoying in this arc. It was too much of a character change without warning for my liking. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Please Read and Review.

In hindsight she should have known something was up. If there was something that Ellie knew, if there was something that Ellie knew intimately then it was when her instincts were telling her something. And her instincts told her straight from the off that something was going on with her father—and more to the point this had nothing to do with Miss Fisher even though now they did seem to be speaking together.

Ellie’s clue came when she had been at her mothers to borrow a book (both her and Sidney being mercifully absent) and she had flicked on the radio wireless her Mother had to see if there was any jazz.

(Ellie was a 1920s girl after all—she liked a little bit of jazz)

And her father’s voice came on the air.

She nearly fainted in shock.

Finally she pulled herself off the chair and grinned.

Oh this was going to be brilliant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Undercover” her father stressed that night over the pasta he had been brought though where he had got that from she didn’t know (more to the point she wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask). “Undercover Ellie. I mean it not a word to anyone.”

He had however told her about the case in it’s entirety because of that and now Ellie knew all about radio station frauds and gambling dens and newspaper articles a hell of a lot more than she had done before. Some of it was confusing and some of it was exciting. Most of the time however she was still baffled that all of this went on and her Grandfather had not gotten around to cleaning it all up which she knew was what he was planning when he did decided (and they all knew it was only a matter of announcing it) to run for Commissioner of the Police Department.

“I’m not completely stupid” she said finally. “I know that your working a high risk case and I know that people only narrowly escaped getting hurt the first time there was a fire at the station. I know what you expect of me…just try not to get yourself killed…please”

Her Dad smiled though she didn’t know weather or not he had picked up on the genuine worry there or not she didn’t know. There was a pause where she thought about putting it into words and then she shook her head. Putting into words what it was to have a father who was a copper was constantly on the front line and could die at any moment was not something that she waned to dwell upon. Therefore she ignored the nagging thoughts and turned back to her book. At least with this undercover job she didn’t have to move back to her mothers big house with Sidney leering all the time.

And then of course it got complicated because there was a murder and it was on air to boot. Ellie had been listening because she had come home from school early and it had taken her a second to allow it to hit her and then she had been racing for her boots not even bothering to change out of her school uniform. Summer was less than a weak away anyway and she was a fast runner—and she had invested in both good bras and good boots and she got to the radio station in a good speed and time all things considering.

There was a long pause where she stood there watching the building where she had no idea if her Dad’s cover had been blown or compromised or if he had a target painted on his back. She didn’t know what to do. Actually now that she was thinking about it…was really thinking about it she didn’t want to know what it must be like for him to have to survive weeks of this. It made her feel rather sick.

But before she could completely pass out in a panic someone was already in front of her, her hands gripping her shoulders tightly. It was Miss Fisher. It was a mark of how frightened she was (because her ribs had hurt for weeks in the aftermath of that fight with that med student—and Ellie was clinging to the knowledge that she had probably come off better in that one) that she didn’t throw her off.

“He’s fine.”

There was no mistaking who she was talking about.

Ellie gripped the woman’s hands.

“You sure?”

“Yes and his covers intact. Louisa was the only one who was murdered. Nobody knows about your father and there’s a good chance that he was not the target at all. As far as everyone is concerned his cover is still maintained. Nobody here knows the truth. Actually as far as the sound man is concerned he’s the main suspect”

Ellie took that all in and then a question came to mind.

“How did you know that I was here for that?”

Miss Fisher shot her a look.

“Ellie I am not a stupid woman…The Lord knows that I am many things and that’s not one of them. I know why you’re here. I imagine he had no choice but to tell you once you heard him on the radio. If I hadn’t got my one fixed today then…” she shrugged.

Ellie took a sigh feeling her whole body ache with relief. “It’s not easy you know” she said feeling someone annoyed that she had been caught in a moment of complete and utter panic. “Even when he’s working at the station there’s always a chance. But when he’s undercover and he doesn’t have a gun on him then it’s even worse.”

“Did you tell him this?” Phryne asked curiously. Ellie rolled her eyes.

“No of course I didn’t tell him. He doesn’t need me to tell him what he already knows. He worries about me I worry about him. He’s my Dad, and he’s a copper. When Hugh and Dot have kids it will be the same.”

“Well that remains fit to be seen” Phryne said meaningfully. Ellie whose patience had never held up well when it came to cryptic clues stared at her feeling her irritation grow. Someday she was going to get a straight answer out of this woman that didn’t leave her emotionally confused or mortified in the extreme.

“What does that mean?”

“Well Dot wants to continue working for me when she’s married. Hugh wants her to give notice”

“And your telling Dot what?” she asked finally.

“Me? Oh no Ellie I am keeping my opinions to myself. Dot should do what makes her happy. Of course I would prefer not to have to take out an ad for more staff. I am as you know something of an acquired taste to most people and I’d rather keep Dot on but I have no illusions when it comes to marriage. Or pregnancy. If Dot does get pregnant she will have to resign at least for a little while. Motherhood changes people even Dot Williams”

“Plus men like Hugh don’t come around too often” Ellie said seeing where the other woman was going with this. “And if he leaves then Dot will regret it and regret leaves to resentment and you don’t want her to resent you later on down the line”

“She’s my friend. I want her to be happy. I don’t see why Hugh cannot compromise but…”

“Because he’s Hugh. He’s a protestant and this is the 1920s. He’s already going against the wishes of his family by proposing to Dot. As for compromises she’s made none of her own. Perhaps you might want to tell her that. Was there any option of her converting? Did she even consider it? All he’s done is what she’s done in reverse. It’s a fair compromise to me. She gives up work, he gives up his religion and possibly his family. Tell her to be happy, god knows there’s not enough of that in this world”

“You have a cynical view on things” Miss Fisher said lightly. Ellie laughed but there was no humour in it whatsoever. She leaned against the hood of the car even if did nothing for her back and shrugged. It was the truth she couldn’t deny it.

“My life was normal. Not perfect but normal until I walked into my house one day after school and found Sidney Fletcher in my father’s dressing gown making a light afternoon lunch for him and my mother. And look…there might have been problems before that. I know the war…I know my Dad didn’t come back from France and Gallipoli the same as when he had left Australia but…but we were happy. So yeah I have a somewhat cynical view of marriage. I’ve seen it collapse because one person wants more than the other person can give. And Dot will never survive a divorce”

Miss Fisher didn’t say anything for a long time.

“This” she said finally. “Is why I never got the point of marriage. You can have sex without a ring on. Makes it more versatile in my opinion. You just need to take precautions and have the right staff”

The matter of fact tone she used when she said this sent Ellie into peels of laughter. Even Phryne grinned after a second.

“Listen” she said after the laugher had stopped. “That thing with Beatrice and me…”

“Forget it” Ellie said. Mercifully the woman shut up and didn’t comment on it further. Ellie wasn’t sure she could stand to answer any questions about her father right now when she had spent the last half an hour wondering if he was hurt or if his cover had been blown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack would have been surprised to see his daughter and Miss Fisher together but the forced reality of the situation was that nothing surprised him anymore. He was tired and aching and he had ran a lot faster into danger this time because he had heard the confession on the radio. Ellie had been with him at the station and there had been something in the look that she shot him that Jack didn’t like but he didn’t want to confront any more issues tonight. Not when it seemed that everyone was peaceful.

Right now he and Ellie were in Phryne’s parlour. Ellie had a lemonade and he had a good strong scotch. They had been invited to dinner and the conversation had been cordial and warm. Dot came back in for their glasses and Ellie who had been staring at her hands for a second spoke into the brief quietness of the room.

“You know mum gave up her job when Dad came back from the war.”

The sudden reference to his marriage made him choke on the scotch. Dot dropped a glass. Ellie looked the woman in the eye.

It was true that during the war Rosie had worked. George he remembered from the letters and the conversation had been furious about it but his daughter had always been a law unto herself—hell that had been one of the reasons why he had married her. She had worked as secretary in a munitions factory at the time and she had given it up when he had come home—he remembered he had not asked her, actually he wouldn’t have had a problem if she wanted to keep working. Of that he had known and told her at the time.

He looked down at his glass. Thinking about Rosie even now after they both knew that their marriage was over and dead and buried was still painful. Even though the thing had ended they had always had some good memories. A lot of love and a lot of respect.

He caught Dot’s eye and nodded. The woman straightened up a second.

“I don’t think that, that’s any of your business” she said quietly.

Ellie looked at her with pity in her gaze. “Maybe” she said finally. “But you’ve asked him to convert. You never offered yourself even I knew that. And if you become pregnant a baby will take up most of your time. And he’s asking you, most men would demand or force. He’s giving up a lot for you. Perhaps you should think about weather or not your attitude is fair. Hugh is my friend. And being the modern woman that you’ve become overnight”

That was slightly bitter Jack thought but he didn’t blame her confusion one bit. He too had been somewhat surprised by Dot’s insistence that suddenly she was a modern woman. She still flinched whenever she got in Miss Fishers car (not that he blamed her for it the woman drove like an escaped convict mid chase). He didn’t say anything. Dot coughed once and then escaped. Ellie took a sip of her lemonade. The silence became somewhat awkward when he thought about it until Phryne spoke again.

“Quite the woman your becoming”

Ellie shrugged.

“What I really wanted to tell her was that you don’t need a man to have what marriage gives you like you said but I doubt Dot’s ever gonna need to borrow your contraception so there you are.”

Jack spat a mouthful of scotch out across the room. Ellie looked at him.

“Did I not tell you about that?” she asked as an afterthought. Miss Fisher sighed and went to replace his drink. Jack had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

He was not wrong.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always spelling and grammar are not my strong suit so please keep that in mind. 
> 
> As always feedback is adored.


	18. Broken Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A case with young girls hits Phryne close to home.
> 
> Ellie is caught in the crossfire.
> 
> Jack goes through the worst moment of his life. 
> 
> Rosie realises something about her daughter and Ellie realises that her instincts were right and she is for the first time a woman and not a little girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter. I hope you enjoy this one but be warned it does deal with some unsettling themes. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Please Read and Review.

Ellie had still been living at her Dad’s when it happened. Her Mum and her were still going for lunch whenever Ellie felt like she could look the woman in the eye. This was more frequent however because her mother had not mentioned in the last couple of weeks anything about wedding plans. Ellie couldn’t deny that there was a part of her that admired the fact that her Mum was a modern woman who like Phryne (though she would never make the comparison out loud in the earshot of either woman) didn’t need a man to have sex. Ellie though she still found herself come over rather giggly at the thought of intercourse had to admit that she too had the stance where she believed a woman didn’t have to be ashamed of wanting to have sex.

After all this was the 1920s. The age of jazz and movies and glitz and sparkles and champagne in Hollywood. This was a turning point history where woman could dress, act and behave like men had done in the past and nobody would judge them.

But her patience and her admiration did not extend to Sidney Fletcher. It never would and therefore she was gratified about the fact that she didn’t have to talk about him.

She had known there was a case involving a nunnery that doubled up as a house for fallen girls. Ellie didn’t know much about it. She knew it was a case that her Dad didn’t want to talk about and she knew it was a popular one because it involved the church. The press had one mind when it came to cases like that and it was to create as much trouble for the police force as they could. She remembered that much when she had been told her grandfather was going to be arrested for the murder of a prostitute and the whole case had hung on Miss Fisher dancing around a darkened room in nothing but some knickers with two feathers.

Anyhow she didn’t pay much attention to it. She would have had these been normal circumstances. But she was a week away from final results and she wanted a good start for the next year. After Christmas she had the chance to start seriously looking at good universities and she found that she wanted to go to one. She had no idea what she wanted to do—but she knew she wanted to go to one.

It didn’t really start—the pieces falling together so to speak—until she walked back to her Mum’s house to see her Dad, Sidney Fletcher and Phryne in a conversation that looked heated somewhat. Her stomach tightened considerably as it always did whenever Sidney Fletcher was in the room for some reason that even now she couldn’t name. He winked at her when nobody was watching and Ellie looked down at her shoes for the reminder of the conversation which saw her mother and Phryne both stick up for the man they had both known for a long time even if it was in different ways.

To cap off a perfect day Ellie thought as she left the house to go back home to her Dad’s place—her father was now embroiled in a love triangle with his ex wife.

She thought about it when she got up to her room. Really she thought about it. Did she want her parents to get back together?

The answer was staring at her right in the face however. Even if they did she wouldn’t want them too. She lay on her bed curled beneath the covers and thought about it. It was a disaster from start to finish. A lot of good memories—she remembered some of them but she knew that they were just that—memories. There was no point in wishing for something that was never going to happen. Experience had told Eleanor Robinson that she was setting herself up for a world of hurt that she didn’t need.

And that was the last of it. She didn’t dwell more on her parents or on the fact that she was clearly hoping for something that wasn’t going to happen.

She turned over instead and went to sleep listening to the sound of the rain pitter pattering on her roof and on the window. It took her some time but eventually she fell asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She had only popped round to see if Phryne knew where her Dad was. He had not come home yet and more to the point she had not heard anything. Usually he was either at the station but all she had seen when she had popped her head in their was an empty desk. Seeing as when that happened he was either stopping her friend or with her. Ellie had thought about asking her grandfather but last time she had seen him he had sent her away with a kiss on the forehead muttering something about this case _‘burdened me and me alone Eleanor Mary’_. There was something in his expression that she didn’t like but she had not asked him about it.

That as it turned out was a mistake.

She turned around in the house and saw much like she had seen Murdoch Foyle leaning against the door the last time another man. This one was slightly more sinister she noted but she only had a split second to notice it before someone else grabbed her from behind. Ellie moved almost instinctually with her feet. She managed to kick one but he had a cloth with something over her mouth before she could even try and get herself out of the strong arms. The smell on the cloth made her drowsy and she fell asleep before she could even scream.

And the world as Ellie knew it right there and then went black.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She woke up a little as she was being forced onto a ship. She had no idea what or why this was happening but her hands (forced behind her back) were touching each other. It didn’t take a lot to throw off the ring on her finger. It had been a birthday present from her grandfather and it was a gold band with a blue sapphire on it surrounded by tiny little diamonds in a square. She heard it drop to the ground and then she was dimly aware of Burt staring at her. She blacked out again however before she had a chance to examine weather or not that was real or just a side effect from the drugs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once Miss Fisher had got the gag off and begun working on his hands Burt took a moment to look down at the kid in his lap. Ellie had half fallen there. She seemed in and out of it—probably given her an extra strong dose of the stuff judging by the smell that seemed to be radiating off her. Her head was on his knee which was good he supposed and her eyelids were fluttering open occasionally. He shot a look at Cec as his hands came free.

“Fucking bastard kidnapped his soon to be stepdaughter” he said to Miss Fisher quietly. “I guess it was to keep Robinson at bay”

Miss Fisher’s mouth twisted violently. “That wont work” she said finally. “If he knows Ellie’s here then he’s going to storm this fucking thing like it’s the last German embankment.”

Burt grinned. Ellie groaned. Her eyes fluttered open once more and they stayed open.

“What the-?” she asked turning around.

“Sidney Fletcher” was all Cec said grimly.

The look that Miss Fisher and Ellie shared at that moment was not lost on Burt at all. Ellie did not seem surprised that this was happening nor did she seem to want the details. She forced herself to stand, swayed on her feet, gritted her teeth and then stood up a little bit straighter. Burt had to give her that, she had balls.

“Sidney Fletcher” she said as if each word was costing her something. “Is mine”

Miss Fisher opened her mouth to say something and Burt did too but before anyone in that small little room could say something there was the sound of gunfire.

Miss Fisher went a rather horrible shade of green and shouted that she had to get to the girls. Burt was all for going after her but before he could so much as sprint after her and Ellie Robinson something hit him on the side of the head.

And here he’d been told all those punch up in the strikes of 1923 and 1924 wouldn’t amount to anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hugh wanted as his boss picked up what looked like a ring. He had gone a horrible shade of white. Hugh had no idea what was happening here but his boss seemed to know and George Sanderson seemed to know because he too had gone the colour of off milk.

“George” said the Inspector in a horrible voice. “Where is my daughter?”

Hugh had no idea what was going on but the next thing he knew there was a shout and he was handcuffing one of his superiors to a pipe while desperately trying to make sure the other one didn’t get himself killed.

He was pretty sure that that promotion he wanted was going down the drain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie had seen Sidney on the top of the ship. She had done a run around Miss Fisher. She had no idea what was going on but she had figured out it had something to do with girls and Sidney.

“Ellie no!” Phryne said trying to grab her but Ellie shoved her elbow into the woman’s ribs and then launched herself at Fletcher. One of her hands right hook him right in the jaw but he kicked her back. Before she could move someone had shot him and he fell overboard and Ellie got to her feet feeling her whole body ache all over as if it was one giant bruise and peer over the side.

“Ellie!” came a voice and she half turned from seeing Sidney Fletcher bob up and down like a cork in the middle of the water swearing worse than a drunken soldier on leave to see her Dad tearing up the back steps, within seconds he was with her and he pulled her into his arms. Ellie closed her eyes and felt her legs give out.

She didn’t care however.

She didn’t care about anything right now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She felt sick. Physically sick. Sicker than she had ever felt in her life and seeing as Ellie as a unborn child had wrecked havoc on her body and she had never felt as weak as she had done in this moment.

Her father had turned a blind eye to human trafficking and her fiancé had been behind the entire thing. How many girls? Oh god her own girl nearly?

And then she came back to full circle. Her own daughter.

And then again Rosie Sanderson felt sick.

Ellie had been watching her for a second as her father had left, her fiancé had gone too in handcuffs. That dratted Fisher woman was still in with her ex-husband and her daughter was watching her with those eyes that seemed to speak more in one second than they had ever done.

But Rosie had to know something.

“Is that why you left? Did you?? Did he touch you or anything like that?” she heard the door open and knew that Jack had opened it for that woman and had stopped dead to listen. She knew things about Jack that would never go away.

Ellie looked at her.

“No” she said finally. “I just had a feeling”

Rosie burst into tears.

Ellie stared at her for another minute and then crossed the room. Rosie hugged her and Ellie hugged her back and she realised that it was the first time in a time too long to tell that she was with her only child. For a second she couldn’t speak and then she turned to see Jack watching them. She shot him a look and Jack being the man that he was (and why on earth did she ever let him go?) crossed the room and wrapped both arms around both of them.

She heard that woman go shutting the door behind them but she didn’t look up from Jack’s shoulder. He smelled the same—the same comforting smell and Ellie was shuddering in her arms and she didn’t care anymore.

The damage she knew was done. But really…

How had she ever chosen Sidney Fletcher over this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phryne didn’t remember getting into bed. She didn’t remember the conversation she had with Jack or the baby or Jane’s phone call from Paris or Dot and Hugh’s whispered conversation. She didn’t remember Aunt Prudence fixing her a drink or her indignant mutters when the story came out via Burt and Cec who were spending the night on her living room floor too exhausted to speak.

She didn’t remember anything once she got upstairs.

Only when she was safe in bed did she think about those girls, about the ones that they had rescued tonight and in the future and then her thoughts went to the ones they didn’t. The girls, the White Gold girls as Sidney had called them that were lost forever. That wouldn’t even be remembered on the pages of history. That nobody had noticed going missing not even in that damn convent.

And she thought a little of Ellie clinging to her mother. Of Rosie Sanderson seeing her father and fiancé in handcuffs. And Phryne couldn’t hate her for it. She wanted to hate that woman so much but she couldn’t. She didn’t even try to think of Jack. Instead she turned her head into her pillow and for the first time in a long time she cried herself to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will deal with the last episode of Season 2 but there is not much action and it will be short. Then we move onto Season 3. 
> 
> Feedback is adored.


	19. Evidence Of Things Not Seen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Phryne are embroiled in a murder (what a surprise) Christmas is just around the corner. 
> 
> Ellie still attempts to deal with what has happened and Jane returns filled with talk of travel and wanting to know what has been going on in her absence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi so here is another chapter, I know this was very late in coming and what with exams there is no guarantee that the next one will be any quicker but here is the final of Season 2. 
> 
>  
> 
> Next chapter will be the start of Season 3 and there are only a few more chapters left 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just Ellie. 
> 
> And i will update as soon as i can

Sidney Fletcher cut a deal. Her grandfather cut a deal.

That should mean nothing to her but it did. Her grandfather was allowed to retire with his pension but without his reputation which considering what a proud man her grandfather had been it was enough to almost destroy him. He had retired in semi-disgrace to his mansion and that had been the last Ellie had seen of him in the long months between her kidnapping and Christmas. Her mother had said nothing about her father. It was if she had become a woman of stone in that regard and Ellie didn’t want to press upon what was clearly an open and gaping wound. Her Dad had told her that the commissioner hadn’t wanted it made public that his deputy was trying to blackmail him out of a job and that his private affairs with the woman at the Imperial Club would soon be tabloid fodder and that part of it had been swept under the rug.

Ellie couldn’t help but be glad of that. To see one’s grandfather on trial was not something she wanted.

Sidney Fletcher had also cut a deal. Trafficking was something that was punishable by death and yet the sleaze had walked away with eight years in prison. Her Dad had pointed out that eight years for a toff like Sidney was not something to turn their noses up at especially when it was clear that due to the little black box he had been keeping hidden—he had friends in high places. Ellie didn’t care.

She had spent three days after the incident in shock burrowed under her blankets and uncontrollably shivering. She had tried to pretend that it didn’t matter what had happened but it did. Eventually she had gotten over the shock and the rage and the humiliation but the whole thing made her want to lie down and never wake up again.

She didn’t want to talk about it. She wanted to forget the whole blasted thing had happened because if she was being honest that was where it had all gone wrong. Sidney Fletcher had locked onto her mother—and probably to keep her grandfather in line. Her father had also taken the time to tell her where her mother and he had stood one Sidney was gone. In case she had long since given up the hope that her parents would magically get back together. Too much had happened between all three of them over the last year and a half and that was without the added presence of Miss Fisher in their lives.

Ellie had mentioned that to her father once over breakfast to which his hands had gone white over his knife and fork.

“Your mother and I know where we stand” he said finally. “Our marriage is over. I will always have some form of love for her Ellie. I was with her for sixteen years, I fought in France so I could get home to her and God knows there were nights that I thought I never would. She gave me you. I will always love her as she will always love me but It’s not enough. It’s not enough at all for anything other than what we have now. But she is worth more than Sidney Fletcher. And your mother knows her worth. This is a setback for her but I have no doubt that she will rise from this defeat as she does everything else”

Well Ellie concluded as the weeks of September and October drew to a close and the wind turned colder and the weather started getting harsher and it became a pain to get out of bed in the morning and she had to start thinking about Christmas, was true at the very least.

Another person she had been steadfastly avoiding however was Miss Fisher. Since that incident on the boat she had gone back to calling her by her more formal title because if she was being honest with herself she didn’t want to talk about that time. She didn’t want to remember that night where she had clutched at her mother and her father had clutched at both of them and she had seen the unreadable but still overwhelmingly pitiful look on her face as she had taken them in, the three of them for the first time a family.

She was utterly confused by the entire thing and she didn’t want to admit why. Of course the second her life was back on track something had to come out of nowhere and blow it straight back up. Ellie should be used to it by now but she wasn’t.

However she was going to have to deal with the situation sooner than later because Jane was coming home and weather or not she knew what was going on Jane was going to find out what was wrong and then demand answers and Jane was younger than Ellie. If Ellie didn’t understand this then she didn’t see how Jane could understand. And for that reason Ellie did not want to go and celebrate Christmas after Church at that big red and white tiled house even if Mr Butler was cooking.

Miss Fisher was going up to the old cottage with her Aunt Prudence for some skiing and as Mrs Stanley called it ‘Getting the Winter Air’. She called it an old cottage but Ellie knew Miss Fisher and she knew the sort of people that Mrs Stanley associated with and therefore she suspected that it was in fact a large four storied house like a palace against the snow. There was a pause when she considered this and then she tried to think about something else. There was no good in thinking like this. There was no good anymore of thinking on issues like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her Dad went up during the night to Miss Fisher. Ellie heard him go. There had been a murder and Miss Fisher was pretty sure that they were all next. Ellie wanted to ask him to stay but she was too tired and the snow was beginning to set in. It was going to be long cold day of that she knew and all she wanted was to bury herself under the thick covers and never get out of them.

Her mother rang after lunchtime when she had woken up sleeping, sleeping past the whole morning. Ellie forced herself out trying not to wince or swear to much at the coldness of her feat on the hard wood of her kitchen floor.

“Hello?”

“Hey Ellie”

It was her mother. Ellie paused. Things between her and her mother had been getting better. Ellie had not commented on the fact that she had always had something of a feeling about Sidney since that night her Dad had thrown him in the cells with a relish that was not strictly professional and her mother had never mentioned his name again. In fact she had burned all his things with relish a week after his sentence in a bonfire in her garden and Ellie was pretty sure her Dad had brought champagne.

“Hello” she said finally forcing her head out of memory lane.

“I was wondering if you had time for breakfast. I have something that I wanted to ask you”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything was tidied up. The killer was in custody. Dot and Hugh were off somewhere celebrating or at least pretending that the house that they were in hadn’t just be home to three murders and god only knows how many more. Mac and Aunt Prue had gone for a much needed drink in the study by the fire for the shock as Aunt Prue had insisted (though she was making quick work of the sherry and would probably make a move on the whiskey sooner rather than later) and Isobel was upstairs refusing to speak to anyone.

“Leave her” Jack said staring into the fire. “She doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now. Everything she’s ever believed in has just been blown apart, your find that she now has to mourn her father all over again, as well as her mother. Her mother that she spent the last few months being a brat too. It’s gonna be rough, she’s gonna need someone in her corner to pull her away from the morbid poetry books.

“Aunt Prudence will take her with her back to Melbourne for a few weeks and then her mother had a sister in Perth.” Phryne said quietly. She could see the contrasts and comparisons between the girl upstairs and the girl Jack had waiting for him at home but she didn’t want to say anything and he certainly did not voice an opinion.

There was a pause where they both sat staring into the depths of the fire. And then Phryne decided to ask the question. “How is Ellie coping?”

Jack started and then went into what she knew was a deep thought.

“She’s coping” he said finally. “She’s not talking to me but that’s Ellie. All throughout the divorce proceedings she didn’t talk to me about it. She’ll work through it her own way. It’s not that she was right about Sidney. To be honest if George wasn’t involved she’d be loving the situation. It’s her grandfather though. That’s the killer. For her, for Rosie…for me. George…George was a good man and a good copper in the beginning. He was a good grandfather and a damn good father in law. I wouldn’t have been able to go to France, contemplate death without knowing if the worst happened he would step in for me with Ellie. It’s hard. I have two pictures of the man in my head. The man he was and the man he became. God knows what it’s like for her”

Phryne acknowledged that.

“And Rosie?” she asked almost afraid of the answer. Jack gave a short laugh.

“Rosie will survive this” he said shortly. “It takes an awful lot to shock her. This is a woman who has slept through many a night as a coppers wife or daughter. I don’t expect to see her sink into despair anytime soon. No she’ll rise from this. Sidney’s gone, her father will be a blow but…she’ll be her usual self soon enough. She wont crumple under this I can promise you that”

The admiration in his voice was enough to make her sick even though she knew that it was innocent enough. They had Ellie. Of course Jack was always going to love and respect the mother of his child. Even if they didn’t have Ellie then the case would still be the same because that was just the kind of man Jack Robinson was.

Phryne turned back to the fire and tried very hard not to think about why that bothered her so much.

(She also didn’t think about how easy it would be to kiss him.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“So” Jane said her eyes bright as she finished describing Istanbul. “What have I missed? Any good murders?”

Ellie took a second to think back on the year Jane had been away. There had been the murders connected with fashion, the murder of the race car driver, the destruction of the medical university and the football debacle that she still didn’t understand. But she didn’t feel like any of that was as important as what had happened four months ago.

“Ask someone else” she said shortly helping herself to another one of Mr Butler’s biscuits. In a vain effort to change the subject she said— “Did you hear that Dot and Hugh are getting married?” and Jane…being a frivolous teenager instead of the battle hardened, streetwise girl she had been immediately began to acclaim her delight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They had been at the diner to welcome Jane home when Ellie slid up to him.

“Mum’s going to Paris for a couple of months to clear her head” she said quietly.

Jack carefully didn’t let the surprise show in his face.

“I want to go for a couple of weeks with her”

He turned.

“Dad” Ellie said her voice very quiet. “I think it’s for the best. I need to clear my head. I need to spend time with her and she cannot do it here. Fletcher did so much damage to the relationship between the two of us that we hardly know one another…and…and I want to forgive her for it. I’m too tired at being angry. I can take a month of school for the voyage nobody will mind and I can have some weeks with her and come back. I can catch up”

“I know darling” Jack said finally his throat tight. “I know this is good for you. It’s just…” it was hard to say that he had been used to Ellie’s presence in his house for so long that he wasn’t sure what he was going to do without it. Ellie however shot him a look from under her eyelashes that Jack thought told him that she knew all of this and much more.

“It’s not forever you know. And you could come with us”

Jack shook his head. Pointless to tell his daughter that a visit with Rosie to the most romantic city in the world would do nothing but complicate things for both of them, so instead he settled on the easiest and perhaps the most truthful answer.

“I am not setting foot in France ever again” he said flatly. “I promised myself if I ever got out of that bloody country I was never going back even to sightsee. I did that for most of 1919 and it didn’t help with anything”

Ellie stared at him and then taking in his expression nodded and looked away.

Jack tightened his arm around her waist as Phryne laughed somewhere off to the side of him.

“You’ll come back?” he asked finally.

“In a month” Ellie promised her mouth quirking into a grin as she looked back at him looking more like her old self than she had done for a while. “You know me Dad. I’ll never go too far away from you”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always spelling and grammar are not my strongest suit. 
> 
> As always feedback is adored.


	20. Past Is Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ellie goes to Paris and comes back. 
> 
> Baron Henry George Fisher is in Victoria much to the annoyance of his daughter. 
> 
> Jack wakes up in Phryne’s bed in silk pyjama’s and has no idea how he got there or what he might have done. 
> 
> Not much of the episode just an exploration of one scene. And all in Ellie’s point of view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter. This one deals with one specific scene of Season 3 Episode 1 rather than the episode so I hope you all enjoy. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> And as always spelling and grammar are not my strongesit suit so any inacuracies i apologise. This story is AU so there might be some inacuracies about certain episodes as well. 
> 
> And there are only six more chapters left of this story so enjoy!

She spent three weeks in Paris. The weather turned from the cold when they set sail and when she buried herself under the bed that she shared with her mother on the steamer and dreamt she found she didn’t dream of anything—certainly not of those long hours trapped underneath the steel pipes of another ship bound for somewhere she didn’t know.

Her mother away from Australia was a different woman. She flirted with the waiters and got Ellie champagne and the hotel in Paris saw them share a bottle and eat ice cream in bed that first night. They toured various places in Paris and only once did Ellie wake up early and take the train to the memorial in the middle of the city to all of the men who had died in the First World War. The soldiers who had died and lived and fought alongside her father and his friends. She placed the flowers down with other flowers on the tombstone and sat back on her heels for a second. It seemed hard to believe that just a few cities away there had been a war that had seen this country in it’s peace and in it’s sparkling light and glamour torn and destroyed for four years.

She then went back to the hotel room and tried not to think about her Dad pounding the pavement in the early months of 1919 in this very castle and watching the sun rise and knowing that so many men were dead. She tried not to think of Burt and Cec and the champagne they drunk and how it did nothing to take away the memories and she certainly tried very hard not to think about Phryne stripping naked and having her body painted because she was poor and far braver than Ellie ever would be.

She slept next to her mother, dined next to her mother and shopped with her mother enjoying the sights of Paris. She enjoyed the fresh roses that were sent up to their bedroom every morning with the paper and the coffee and the sound of the birds that came to rest on the balcony. She enjoyed the freedom. Ellie suspected underneath it was all for show but Paris was for lack of a better word alive even if there was still a sense of pain in the air.

The relationship between her and mother increased in spades before they had to part. Her mother was staying in Paris for a few more months saying she needed some time for herself and Ellie was due to go back when the new school year started in earnest. She had already missed a month or two due to travel and she found that she wanted to go back. The month in Paris had seemed like a dream that would not stop but experience had taught Ellie that good things had to come to an end and it was best that when they ended it was her in control of it.

And so she got back on that steamer and went home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thankfully the journey was short and thankfully she was not sea sick. She could sit out on the dock and watch as the sea turned from different shades of blue and the sky to match it. There was a pause where she stood there on the deck and tried not to be nervous about the sight of Australia coming across the shoreline. This was her home. This was her country. She was not going to run away from it just because a slick bastard in a shiny grey suit thought he was God.

When she got off the boat she wasn’t surprised to see Burt and Cec there and she allowed them to hug her and take her suitcase. She didn’t mention Paris and they didn’t ask. She suspected that their memories of Paris were still raw even without the madman trying to kill them last year and she didn’t want to drag up memories for both of them. And she had to notice that the two of them didn’t ask about the city that they had collapsed in in the immediate aftermath of the Great War.

Her Dad was apparently working on a case and so Ellie after unpacking decided to go and bite the bullet and ask for Miss Fisher. Knowing her as she did it was clear that the woman was going to be working the case alongside him. Ellie knew her Dad had long since given up on ever working peacefully again. Miss Fisher was like the furniture at the station—always there and in most cases getting in the way.

The red and white house was still much the same. Jane had gone back to boarding school and Ellie knew that she had missed her departure something that she was rather glad about. Jane was a good friend and a nice girl but she was still young enough to ask questions and not recognise that Ellie didn’t want to answer them. Someone would have told her what had happened that night on that ship between herself, her father, Miss Fisher, her mother’s fiancé and her grandfather and someone would have told her about those girls. All in all Ellie didn’t want to have a conversation with Jane about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She knocked on the door and then when it was opened blinked. She was unable to do anything but because standing there in the doorway was a man who she had never seen before and was still the strangest man she had ever seen.

He was old about mid fifties early sixties and he had hair that had once been blonde she was sure off. He was wearing a flowery dressing gown made of silk over what Ellie suspected were pyjama’s which was strange because it was nearly lunchtime. He smiled at her and she noted that the ring on his finger must have cost at least more than one family in Collinswood could have earned in their lifetime.

“Hello my dear” he said as if he was always this cheerful at the sight of a teenager on his…or someone else’s doorstep.

Anyway she blinked again before remembering.

“Hello. My name is Eleanor Robbinson, I’m here to see Miss Fisher”

The man stared at her for a second as if trying to place the name and then he snapped his fingers together with the air of a man pulling a large rabbit out of the hat.

“Oh you must be the daughter of the detective? Come in my dear, come in” he ushered Ellie indoors and then pattered into the kitchen leaving her standing in the hallway. Thinking that there was nothing else to do but follow him Ellie did taking a seat at the table after she had hung up her jacket.

“Omelette?”

“Coffee” she said finally.

“Where is my Dad?”

“Oh upstairs I think. Drank enough nerve tonic to flatten a cart horse. Phryne put him to bed in her room”

Ellie choked on her coffee.

“Are they?” she asked raising an eyebrow. He seemed to understand what she was asking.

“Oh no I don’t think so. She’s not going to take advantage of a man in that state. He was pretty out of it even before the nerve tonic. Few too many martini’s I suspect. I’ve never been a fan of all of those new fangled American cocktails. There’s a great deal of fuss made about them in New York but it’s all just overpriced sugar in my book. No if your going to get good and drunk my dear stick to something reliable like scotch”

Ellie stared at him.

“I’ll keep that in mind” she said. In all honesty she was not sure what else there was too say.

There was a long pause.

“Oh God” said a voice from the doorway. It was Miss Fisher. “Father what the hell have you being doing?”

“Father?”

“Oh” the man said as if this was a treat he had forgotten about. “I did forget to mention that didn’t I. Henry George Fisher my dear, Baron of Richmond and dear Phryne’s father”

Ellie shot a look out of the corner of her eye. Phryne did not look like it was a treat for her that her father was staying with her. In fact she looked deeply disgruntled.

“Nice to meet you” she said finally.

“Well” Henry George Fisher said standing up. “I’m going in search of my morning tipple. Good day my dear”

Ellie waited until the door was shut and then sat back against the chair and said the first thing that came to her mind.

“Jesus Christ”

“Not the worst thing that comes to mind” Miss Fisher said bitterly. “I suppose you went looking for your father? He didn’t mention you were coming back?”

“Not surprising considering that he was apparently drinking like a sailor on shore leave” Ellie responded.

“And your mother?”

Was it her or was there some sort of added question to that comment?

“Staying on in Paris for a bit. Doesn’t want to come home yet. Not surprising all things considered—” she cut herself off tightly forcing herself to stop taking. She didn’t want to sit here with this woman and relive that night. She wasn’t sure if she would ever be ready to relive the events that had happened. Miss Fisher seemed to understand and didn’t press her heel on the open wound.

“Your father’s upstairs” was all she said. “I found him some pyjama’s. Well there my father’s and I put him to bed. Should be alright but I think he might want a strong pot of coffee and some good eggs. Also I think he might want to leave of the drink for a bit, and perhaps the investigating for today. I have to go and see if I can stay underwater long enough, I am going to be a miraculous mermaid”

“Who undressed him?” Ellie asked and then as soon as she did ask she found she didn’t want to know the answer much.

“Mr Butler” was replied back but Ellie got the distinct impression that Phryne Fisher had been desperate for a look. She turned that thought of as soon as she had thought it refusing to let it take root in her brain. She might have only had coffee but she didn’t think Mr Butler would be too impressed if she threw up over the white tiled floor that he had probably just cleaned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie waited until the door was shut behind her before she muttered. “Off course you are” and forced herself to her feet and up the stairs to what she supposed was Miss Fisher’s bedroom. She pushed open the door and resisted the urge to roll her eyes because this was exactly what she had been expecting.

There was silk all over the dressing table, dresses, underwear over the chair and jewels spilled all over the oak table tops. The picture that had resulted din the deaths of two men was still on the wall and the well worn black and white picture of a girl that Ellie now knew was Janey Fisher. Another photo was clearly of Miss Fisher’s ambulance crew in the war and art was scattered around. Turkey carpets little the floor and the books on either side of the bed were a combination of mysteries, romances and language books. The bed itself was huge and looked incredibly soft. The sheets were silk, the duvet was made of silk and the pillows in silk of a grey kind with a purple blanket on the floor. All in all it looked like the bedroom of a well monied woman who did not care about what was said about her because even from the doorway next to the flowers Ellie could see beside the lipstick the contraception was out and proud despite it’s reputation and the tin case that she was willing to bet contained cocaine.

There was a lump in the middle of the bed and Ellie knew it was her Dad. He was still asleep or he had his eyes closed in any case. His hair was a mess and he looked like death. Ellie folded her lip under her teeth and tried not to giggle.

“Dad” she said flatly and for good measure kicked the bed. With a word or two that was not nice her Dad’s eyes flickered open.

“When did you get back?” he mumbled.

“Today. You know what bed your in?”

Her Dad opened one eye and looked around and then as the reality of the situation kicked in he sat up.

“Shit”

“Don’t worry” Ellie said trying to not giggle (and that was proving very damn hard indeed) “You didn’t do anything. Unless you count getting completely pissed and trying to whack Miss Fisher’s father before collapsing on the floor”

“Father…that was her—oh”

“Yeah. The blame is completely on you though. Her father takes nerve tonic and it apparently rather liberal with the dose. You got the wrong glass. Dot rang Hugh whose covering for you. Good thing too because you look like one good hit would kill you”

“As ever darling you have all the sensitivity of a blunt axe.”

“Yeah. Ok. Mum’s staying on in Paris and your damn lucky that Burt and Cec remembered that today was the day I was coming home”

Her Dad moaned in response and then suddenly bolted for the loo. Ellie sighed feeling rather put upon but also found that despite it all she was grinning. She pulled her long hair out of the knot at the back of her head and wondered weather or not she should go mad and just cut the whole thing off.

Her Dad staggered back in looking like he was inches away from death.

“Don’t be smug” he said as he crawled back into the bed of the woman he was apparently not sleeping with wearing her father’s pyjama’s to boot.

“Don’t worry” Ellie said unable to stop grinning, she was surprised to find that despite everything it was easy to grin again.

“Let’s just call this a lesson for both of us and never mention it again.”

Her Dad’s hand found hers and squeezed it and she squeezed it back.

“I am glad your back” he muttered into the pillow.

Ellie grinned surprised despite everything. “You know something? I’m glad I’m back too”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might be a loll in updates due to exams so please keep that in mind-however I will try and update as soon as I can. 
> 
> Feedback is of course always welcomed.


	21. The One That Matters The Most

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ellie adjusts to life back in Australia. 
> 
> The RAAF get involved in one of Jack’s cases. 
> 
> Phryne runs in bare feet and a leather jacket, Ellie meets a two rather charming airmen, Jack loathes everything and everybody and Burt understands where Ellie doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter-and there should be one following this as well. I hope you enjoy this chapter as the next one is coming next. I do hope now all exams and essays are done that I will be able to bring you the remining chapters sooner rather than later. Thank you all for your patience. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Also in terms of the Air Force mentioned here no disrespect is intended-Jack is simply just jealous. Also I don't know much about the Australian Air Force so any mistakes made I do apologise for. 
> 
> Please read and review and let me know waht you think

And just like that they managed to survive again. Actually the two of them did better than survive. It was easier than it had been before Ellie thought. Better without the anguish and the hate and the bitterness that had been the presence of Sidney Fletcher in their lives. Now he was gone it became a hell of a lot easier for the two of them to exist amongst the two of them. It was all soup and bread and dinners and conversation. Her Dad asked once about Paris but never about the Graves of the Unknown Soldier or about any conversations that she might have overheard about that time in history where Paris was alive with young men. He did ask about what she thought of the world outside of the little continent that had been her home for so long.

And then of course it all went to shit.

But in Ellie’s defence it was not her fault. It was the fault of the rivalry that had gone on for longer than time had become. The fault of man vs man. And this time it happened to be her Dad against the RAAF Captain Lyle Compton.

There had been a murder at the Air Base and Ellie knew literally as much as that because there had been some cases where she had known that the subject was painful—this had not been one of the those cases. There had been no tell-tale warning sign about what was going on during this case and that therefore was why she had not expected her Dad to come home in one hell of a mood muttering about ‘ _posh fly boys who didn’t do shit in the war but comb their hair’_ which Ellie thought might be unfair and totally out of character. He went into his room and slammed the door shut and Ellie who was in the middle of reading the new novel she had picked up had barely been able to get anything out of him for the rest of the night.

In a moment of desperation she called Burt and Cec. Both of them had served in the Army and they would understand what the hell was making her Dad (who usually balked at the thought of talking about the war) was on about when he talked about the Air Force.

Burt listened on the phone before saying in a tone shaking with laughter that he would try and see if he could sort it. Ellie had no idea what that meant but she assumed from the sniggers that it was something to do with Phryne’s ex who was apparently working the case as well from the RAAF side and therefore not being what one would call cooperative.

“I’ll give Robinson he’s due it’s not his fault” Burt said sagely over the phone as Ellie tried to hang up.

“I do get it you know. Not like that Compton fella knew too much about the mud like the rest of us diggers”

And with that he hung up the phone before Ellie could ask what the fuck he was talking about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If there was ever a time where Hugh Collins wanted a black hole to open up in the world it was would be this moment in time right now. A shoot out with the RAAF was not on his list of things to do—ever and a part of him knew that the only reason he had not gotten shot was because Miss Fisher had arrived and saved the day. The fact that she had arrived wearing nothing more than an airman’s leather jacket that barely covered her— _female area_ —and was barefoot in the dirt hardly helped matters. Of course Hugh was glad that they now finally had a bit more information but he know had to drive the Inspector back to the station.

And that was turning out to be one of the most awkwardness car rides ever and that including the time he had to drive after that fiasco at the Imperial Club that he was still trying not to think about.

Out of the corner of his eye as they reached the station Hugh shot the Inspector a look. He had the expression of a man who wanted to do something very bad but common decency and common sense were preventing him from doing so. Hugh hoped that Lyle Compton was not too involved in the case. The Inspector would love the chance to arrest him just a bit _too much_ he thought.

Instead he turned back to the file he was looking at. Now they had the poem and the connection to whatever was going on in the European Club. He wanted to complete a case on his own—he wanted to at least have a decent amount of say in this one. Getting married, starting a family and doing it with a house was not an easy thing. And he knew that despite the fact that Dot wanted to work and wanted a gun and wanted to investigate she also wanted children and while he had compromised after she was married that she could work there was no way in hell that Dot was going to run around after Miss Fisher when she was pregnant. Hugh was all for empowerment, but this was 1926 for crying out loud!

He turned back to the sight of the blurring words in front of him. There was something about this case that made even he think that there was something very simple in front of them that they were missing.

There was another loud bang coming out of his bosses office. Hugh winced. He would so hate to be RAAF Captain Compton right now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She had only stopped by the station to see if her father was going to come home at any point. Whatever had happened between him and this Air Force Captain had not improved his mood. He had now started snarling everytime airplanes were even mentioned and had banged his bowl so hard into the sink when he had finished his stew Ellie was surprised the china hadn’t cracked into pieces there and then. He had stormed out of the house before she had even risen in the morning and concern as well as curiosity compelled her to go and see what was amiss.

The station was nothing like she had seen before. There was a pause as she stood on the doorway. There was a moment where she had to blink a couple of times and that had nothing to do with the six foot tall airman who was being hounded out of the interview room looking like he would rather go to war than be where he was right now. He was a massive giant she thought with cheekbones that could cut glass and he arranged his hat with the appearance of a man who had seen a lot and was yet not amused by it whatsoever and Ellie who was not the type of girl who threw herself at men without a reason suddenly found herself debating weather or not she would be able to stand a chance with him.

There was a pause where she stood there and then she saw another man step out of the room looking more annoyed than the first. He too was RAAF and Ellie knew enough about both posture and military medals to know he was of higher rank. His uniform was different and the younger man immediately straightened up when he caught sight of what was going on. There was another heartbeat and then she saw—or rather she heard the sound of her father and Phryne hissing at each other in a way that told Ellie in a split second that they were having a conversation or more like a fight and they were doing their damned best for the airmen to not overhear.

A feather came to the elbow of the first man.

“Compton will you please come back inside so we can figure out a plan to ensure that the people who killed Ginny get caught.”

“You can come out with all of the plans that you like Phryne you are not taking one of my planes up in the sky with only hope that you wont get shot down. Your own plane is a different story but I have a large problem with you taking one of my planes and one of my men.”

“If It’s not an Air Force plane then there’s no point in doing it” her Dad pointed out. “They want to shoot down another one of your planes to send a message not a private one. And didn’t you too fly together in the war?” he moved his finger back and forth between Compton and Phryne who shot him a look that was less than friendly in that exact moment. There was a long pause where her Dad seemed to radiate a moment of pure smugness at the anxiety that he had caused and then his gaze flickered across the room and landed on her.

“Ellie what the hell are you doing here?”

“Happy to see you too” Ellie snarked back feeling if she was being honest with herself amused at the scene that was presented out before them. Honestly she didn’t know what was going on but it did feel like she and the tall brown haired man who quite frankly resembled some form of sex on a stick (and her Mother said that Vogue gave her nothing!) who managed to wink at her when nobody was looking. Ellie resisted the urge to tell him there and then that she was only two years off eighteen and had a wonderful interest in airplanes by folding her teeth over her lip and biting down.

“Ellie what are you doing here?”

“Wanted to see if you what all of the fuss was about. Also I wanted to know if you wanted to go grab some dinner—seeing we have nothing in.”

“I’ll get Dot to make you some soup and some stew” Phryne said finally and then she turned her head away to where Compton was watching her with some sort of soppy look that even Ellie (who apricated romantic behaviour—she was a teenager after all) found sickening.

“I can feed my own daughter thank you very much” her father snapped uncharacteristically though it might have had something to do with the fact that the RAAF were still there. Ellie thought the entire mood of the conversation couldn’t get anymore awkward. Phryne looked rather hurt.

“So we have a plan?” Compton asked in a wild way of defusing the tension. Ellie rolled her eyes, sat down on a chair and prepared herself for another row. A second later the other airman sat down next to her. “Smoke?” he asked holding out the packet. Ellie shook her head grinning as the conversation increased in volume.

“You better get comfortable” she told him. “This could go on for some time”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two arrests later, two airmen out of his office, half a bottle of scotch gone and some strange visit from Burt who said he sympathised with the _flyboy situation_ whatever the hell that meant and Jack was in the mood to celebrate. He firmly told himself that that was down to the fact that a murderer was behind bars and not because the RAAF had decided to send Lyle Compton to oversea an airbase in New South Wales rather than Victoria.

Ellie was sat on the couch when he came in and Jack dropped a kiss on her head and knew that he was smiling like an idiot.

“Get dressed” he said beaming. “I want to take you out to dinner. I feel like I’ve hardly seen you since I got back”

“Oh?” Ellie said sitting up. “And where are we going?”

Jack paused. He was not brave enough to go to the Chinese quarter tonight and he was in no mood for steak. And…well…they were friends after all. He had only gone there when Ellie had been away because he had in all honesty been lonely. And it would do good for _her_ brother to know that he was still watching in case the Vendetta spilled over again.

And they did do wonderful pasta.

“Fancy Italian?” he asked innocently.

“Why?” Ellie said. Damn she was too perspective for her own good.

“I have a friend I want you to meet”

Ellie watched him for a beat longer and then shrugged.

“Ok. But I want a glass of wine”

For once Jack didn’t even bother to correct her. Lyle Compton was gone with the clouds and he personally felt like he was on Cloud Nine watching him fly alone away from his own peaceful little calm during the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And let me know what you think. Next chapter should be up soon and has an AU ending (ish)


	22. Anonymous Was A Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie and Phryne meet Jack’s new friend with mixed results. 
> 
> A case gets entangled with the Mafioso and the Italian waring families. 
> 
> Ellie meets a charming waiter and Phryne contemplates weather or not she will do the unthinkable and Ellie conspires to give someone a happier ending. 
> 
> AU ENDING TO THIS EPIOSDE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter following my previous update. This chapter has an AU ending because struggle with this episode which was Murder and Mozzarella and after re-watching it and taking the route I have taken Ellie down in previous episodes I though that the whole sending Mariana away could be worked into human trafficking of which Ellie and Phryne were nearly victims of and that was why they would help. 
> 
> Also I think we all know that Jack is not a dirty cop but he has bent certain rules like the time when he asked Phryne to bury the photographs in Season 1 of the same-sex couple so they wouldn't be arrested and charged. So I think this was just another thing like that. Nona Luisa was in my opinion one of the main villains of this episode and I don't shed tears over her loss. 
> 
> So yeah, some of this episode has been reworked but i hope you like the chapter anyway. If not then you can skip this one and i will try and have the next one updated sooner rather than to late. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. 
> 
> Spelling and grammar are not always correct so please keep that in mind and i also dont know too much about the Italian Mafia and the Camorra in 1920s Australia so therefore any mistakes were taken from the episode. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think.

Ellie was watching him with her dark eyes in a way that made Jack feel like he was twenty again and he was about to go over the top and his drill instructor was scanning him for any signs of mental or physical toll that would see him do something stupid. He felt like he was covered in mud again. There was a long pause as he took his glass and drank a rather large amount so he had something to do.

“Alright out with it” he said finally.

“Are you and Conchie together?”

Jack closed his eyes and then opened them again after counting to ten.

“Her name is not Conchie” he said finally once he was sure he wouldn’t smash his head into the table. Things like that scared both the customers and the wait staff alike.

“Alright whatever her name is” Ellie said with an eyeroll. “Are you?”

“No.” Jack said shortly because that was truth. “And anyway if I did would it bother you?”

“No” Ellie said simply spearing a mushroom ravioli on her fork. “It wouldn’t. Even though the last time that a parent of mine tried dating it ended up he was involved in a human trafficking ring with my—” she cut herself off suddenly and Jack was sure that she was about to mention George. Apparently that part was a bit too raw for his daughter—hell it was raw for him. He looked down at his veal and didn’t say anything for a second until he was sure that Ellie was doing ok. She was when he risked a glance upwards.

“Look” he said finally breaking the stalemate in the conversation. “I know that your worried and El I get that but I am not in a relationship with anyone. I wouldn’t do that—not without telling you about it first, I promise you”

Ellie snapped her gaze back towards him.

“Oh I know that” she said waving her hand as if that was the most stupidest question that Jack had posed to her to date. “I know you, I know don’t worry about that. The problem is that I always thought that you and Phryne would get together”

Jack wasn’t sure what was worse, the fact that she had said this with utter clarity and absolute belief in her tone, the fact that she had said it so openly. The fact of the matter was she wasn’t far off either and that made him want to gnash his teeth together. He and Phryne had not spoken since Lyle Compton had been re-deployed, far away from where Jack was (to his utter delight) and therefore there was no obstacle except for the image that was always in his mind of _her_ in _his_ jacket which did little for the stomach or for the imagination.

“I don’t know what to say about that” he said finally.

“I know” Ellie said her voice very soft. “I got that too. I do get these things you know”

“Oh I know. You’ve got your mother’s brains and my curiosity. Your going to be a devil unleashed on some poor unsuspecting fool no doubt” Jack said with a laugh that was genuine despite the circumstances. Ellie beamed at him downed her small (despite his protests) glass of wine and shot him a look that wouldn’t have fooled a confused, nervous first day constable on the job. Anything Jack thought but to continue this conversation and so he grabbed the bottle of red they were sharing (and by they he meant mostly him) and poured her a glass.

There was a long pause where the two of them ate and Jack noticed as the cheesecake was served by the younger brother of the woman he was—keeping an eye on—he saw Ellie shoot a look at the bar. He turned. There was another Italian boy stood there about seventeen watching with an expression that told even Jack he was interested.

As if she was reading his mind Ellie smiled turning a lock of her dark hair over her finger in a way that was again so reminded him so much of Rosie that Jack couldn’t help but smirk. That little lock twisty thing had gotten him into bed with his first wife and then up the aisle. If Ellie hadn’t been his daughter he would have smirked because the poor fucker leaning against the bar would have been putty in their hands. As it was Ellie was his daughter and therefore he was utterly irritated by what was going on.

“Who is that?”

“That” Jack said because he knew who it was. “Is James Marconi. He’s the son of one of the chefs here. And before you start I should tell you this entire establishment has some form of connection to organised crime. To be honest if I had a case to build I would arrest the whole lot of them—as It happens I have no proof so therefore I can have a good meal in peace”

“Really?” Ellie asked winking in the direction of James Marconi who blushed and nearly dropped his cocktail glass. Jack resisted the urge to bang his head into the table again. There was another pause and then Ellie turned her attention back to him and shrugged. “Look, if you can have a friend from Italy then I can. At least they were allies in the war”

Jack snorted into his wine and reminded himself he had to work tomorrow and therefore he couldn’t order another bottle of wine or something stronger and also he couldn’t arrest that twit at the bar because he didn’t have any proof—though he supposed that Collins had been clamouring for some sort of investigation services. He grinned and stuffed another mouthful of cheesecake into his mouth.

Ellie was too busy flirting to notice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She was feeling—strange—yes, that was the word to describe it. Of course she had no reason to be. She had no reason to be jealous or anything like that because as she kept reminding herself as she paced her bedroom back and forth after she had, had that ridiculous dinner with a woman that was actually far too nice for her to hate. Phryne kept reminding herself of that as she felt the silk she wore to bed swish against each other.

Jack was perfectly entitled to see other women—actually after all that had happened between him and her and…Lyle…she was surprised he was still speaking to her. This unseen thing between them had been dragging on for years now and she had always maintained that she was not going to stop just because a man thought he had some sort of claim on her. She had lost too much and she had seen too much to ever claim that.

Oh this was infuriating!

She couldn’t even focus on this murder for the love of God!

And Ellie Robinson was not helping because when she had decided to pop in during the station (and didn’t that girl have homework to do or something? Surely she would have heard if she was abandoning her education?) she had simply smiled at Phryne with that amazingly confident smile and that was after she had sailed through the brawl outside winking at both men in a way that had Phryne feeling sorry for Jack—dealing with a hormone soaked teenager was not something that she could imagine, thank God she had a few years before Jane got the that level…

But no she was getting ahead of herself here. She needed to focus on what was happening. Jack was moving on, he was moving on past the insanely beautiful Rosie to another beautiful woman only this one came with a restaurant and a husband who had been long dead and who had been embroiled in some sort of criminal activity since she had gotten off the boat.

She downed the whiskey glass impatiently. She didn’t like drinking in bed unless she wasn’t alone and therefore she didn’t take the bottle up with her. Right now she was regretting that decision because if there was ever a night where she needed to get blind drunk and fall asleep and not wake up till noon it was this one.

Instead she had a murder case to solve. She had no clue how she was going to solve it but she had to do something or else she was going to go mad.

She had to go and see the son in law of Nona Luisa. She had to go and see what was behind the Camorra’s interest in an old woman, a widower and a young girl whose only crime so far that Phryne could see was loving the son of her father’s enemy.

She was kinda hoping that things would work out for them though. There had been enough Romeo and Juliet’s the first time around. There didn’t need to be another couple attempting to leap to the same heights.

And she needed to take her mind of Jack. She needed to think about something else other than the image of Concetta and Jack, the former brushing down the jacket that would adorn those rather well formed shoulders and the fact that they had both been spending time together—without her knowing about it at all.

Some Lady Detective she was.

Ugh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The aftermath of the funeral left nothing to be desired. Except that now she was a grave robber and Dot had caused a minor disturbance at a funeral in Catholic Church which had done nothing Phryne thought for the Priest granting her a favour (if he noticed it at all which was not beyond the realms of possibility). Instead all she had learnt was that there had been a love match denied by history. Granted she was a bit out of practice with Italian family politics in the previous century—this had everything to do with the Camorra she suspected and less to do with the two lovebirds who had been shooting each other pining looks from the opposite sides of the pews when their respective fathers were not looking. Phryne really hoped that it wasn’t them she really did—even if she wasn’t in the mood for True Love and all of that jazz.

She stared at the locket for a second longer of the woman that Concetta’s father had loved despite what seemed like a happy marriage for who knew so many decades. She had never been married—she had been too unbending in that department. God knows there had been lovers. There had been tons of them if she was being honest with herself and the closest that she had gotten before Jack had been Lyle and that had been a four year affair that had ended alongside her innocence and several thousands Australian lives.

Marriage was not something she had ever considered and she had never seen the point of parenthood—Jane had been the closest thing she had come to that and Jane could dress herself, feed herself and more importantly went to school by herself. She had never had the relationship that Jack and Ellie had, had where she had raised and held the baby and done all the things with a small child that Jack had done. The closest thing that she had done when it came to dressing someone or playing games with them was Janey and that was still too painful a memory for her to dwell on it.

But that still didn’t prevent the murder that had taken place and more to the point she was pretty sure she had just solved it. Like so many of her previous mysteries it came to her as she was sat there on the stairs thinking about love.

What would you do to spend the rest of your life with the person you love? What would you do when you were threatened with the loss of that one person because something that had happened before you were born dictated the events of the rest of your life? What would you do? And what would you do to the one person who was standing in your way?

Phryne sighed to herself. She should stop drinking whisky before bed. And she should stop this—a murder was solved—didn’t matter how bitter the taste it left in her mouth. But she couldn’t help but hope that they would escape before she managed to get to Jack. She needed help. But…

But was she prepared to do this?

Yes.

And she could blame it on the whisky she supposed. Everything she had been through in this life and in the next had shown her that love was too rare and beautiful. Someone should get their happy ending.

The phone call was made before she had even thought about it and she could only hope that it wasn’t Jack that picked up.

“Lo, Robinson residence” said a sleepy and decidedly female voice.

“Ellie it’s Phryne” she said in a rush before she could stop herself.

“Yeah I gathered that. It’s ten o clock though, I was sleeping. Is there a reason why your calling?”

“Where’s your father?”

“Station why? Did something happen?”

“No” Phryne said before she could panic. “No, it’s nothing like that. Look…how do you feel about sticking a finger up at the system and the families that would strip two people who love each other away form their happiness?”

“Are you drunk?”

“Ellie…it was Mariana and Vincenzo who killed the Nona Luisa. I think she was going to ship off Mariana to Italy in disgrace for her affair, I don’t think she was planning to tell her son in law either she never did like him. Therefore I think Mariana poisoned her with the mushrooms and then Vincenzo strangled her not realising that Mariana had done the dead. More to the point I’m not sure I can prove it. Nor do I want to, so there we go. Jack will get Vincenzo in a room and he will confess to save his love and then the wrong person hangs for the wrong crime, for a crime that was completely understandable. Because it was like…well…if Nona Luisa was going to have the Camorra ship of her granddaughter without telling anyone then that would be like—”

“Sidney…really that’s what you want to use on me?”

“Look. I know it’s hard but if you could get to Vincenzo then—” again she was cut off.

“Seriously? You want me to go to the restaurant and tell him he’s got to flee. Don’t you think that’s going to be a bit obvious if his sister or his father see me?”

“I’d do it myself If I thought Concetta would listen to me” Phryne snapped feeling desperate. “I think she’s got her eye on your father”

“You don’t say” Ellie said sardonically. “So you want me to go to the restaurant in the middle of the night and tell Concetta that her brother and his lover are about to be arrested and that they need to flee? Where? Somewhere outside of the Empire? Because they sure as hell cannot go to Italy if they’ve just knocked off a relative”

“France, Turkey, somewhere in Europe? New Zealand, that cannot be that difficult. They could get the boat tonight, be in the country before the end of the weak and then if they change their name then all can be well and I don’t have to help send two people who love each other and who were desperate to hang”

“A lot of people were desperate. You’ve put them away no problem. What makes this different?”

Phryne paused on the edge of answering.

“Because I have put people away, I have put them away and never lost a moments sleep over it. But this is different. These are two young kids who were cornered into this, they were made to feel like this was the only way out because of a war that their grandparents thought. And it creates another generation of pain, hate, violence and these people thinking that it’s all justified. Mariana and Vincenzo’s only crime was falling in love really. Everything they did after that was just extra. I know what I’m asking you to help me do Eleanor, I know it goes against the way you were raised but I think I we both know each other well enough to know that we both won’t sleep well once this is over. I just want to give them a head start. If there caught then nobody need ever know that we gave them a heads up. If they don’t then—we can turn our attention to the Camorra. There the real villains in all of this.”

There was a very long pause.

“I’ll ring.” Was all Ellie said “And you better hope like hell that Dad doesn’t catch you.”

And then she hung up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mariana and Vincenzo got away. Roberto Salvatore was behind bars, the Camorra were retreating. Oh they would come back, organised crime always did. Roberto Salvatore would probably not survive the month in prison—after all he had shot Antonio’s son in law.

Jack contrary to popular opinion did know what was going on. He knew that a phone call had been made to his house from Phryne’s when he was not and he knew a phone call had been made from his house to Concetta’s who was maintaining a remarkable ignorance when he had mentioned it.

And of course he knew what had happened. And when he got the report from Roberto Salvatore that told him that Nona Luisa had hired him to smuggle her granddaughter away from her father and back to the old country he got exactly why. Not to mention the fact that Mariana had known that her grandmother had paid a member of the Camorra to kill another man simply to send a message. Jack imagined that too had played a heavy part on the poor kid’s mind. To be honest even if he had caught up with her he would have felt compelled to try and promote a reduced sentence though it didn’t matter—if the noose hadn’t grabbed her, well—she had killed a member of her community, like Roberto Salvatore. She would have probably never seen the outside of her prison cell.

Did it excuse murder? No. But it did give way to (at least in his mind) some leniency. Pity was as Mariana was overage there probably wouldn’t be any. She would hang for trying to stop herself from being kidnapped. And that was before her community got wind of it. No running was probably best and like the pictures all those years ago he had told Miss Fisher to burn he found that he could sleep at night.

He had solved the one murder that had been bugging him for a long time. His daughter was safe and alive. Concetta and he were good friends. And unless he was mistaken (and he wasn’t) he had made Phryne jealous in the same way she had made him not so long ago. So yeah—life was all good as far as Jack was concerned.

He wasn’t a copper to turn a blind eye but he was not going to terrorise his daughter or Phryne over the fact that they might have given two lovebirds a head start. The outcome for both of them had they not was pretty fucking dire nonetheless.

He mentioned this to Ellie over dinner one night and saw her hand slack a little around her fork as if she was trying to think of what to say but Jack shook his head. Grey area or not he was not going to lose sleep over this. He wasn’t. For better or for worse. That was just how it was. There was a pause where he watched her and then he decided to beat around the bush.

“I know they escaped, I know how. I don’t want you to confirm it. There not my concern anymore I promise you. They got away. They can live out their happy ending. Besides, I would have had to arrest the old bat. I’ve seen Concetta break her heart over her husband it was all to prove a point” he took a gulp of tea. “I would have shook Mariana’s hand for finishing the bat off”

Ellie looked down at her fish and then looked back up her eyes dark with something unidentifiable.

“There were going to throw her in a ship and take her somewhere where she would never go home. She was going to take Mariana and sell her off to some old man in Italy. And all I could think about was that could have been me. If you had not come that night that would have been me. I thought I was behind it. I really did but I don’t know…this murder you worked was just a reminder.”

Jack pondered upon that for a second and then had to look away until he had the rage and the pain under control.

He had thought that he was over it as well.

Ellie turned back to her fish after a pause. “Can you sleep at night knowing they got away?” she asked finally.

Jack thought about it honestly. “They are the least of my worries” he said truthfully. And then in a vain effort to change the subject he turned his attention to another worrying (well it was to him anyway) subject.

“Are you going to go out with that Italian boy?”

Ellie laughed out loud her dark curls falling back over her shoulder.

“Oh fuck no” she said laughing. “Sorry—” she said apologising for the language. “But I have had enough Italians for a lifetime”

Jack laughed and jokingly agreed with her.

“You mean you and Concetta are not going to carry on then?”

“No” Jack said truthfully. “She knows the truth now. She needs time to grief and…I don’t know it was never going to work”

Ellie opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again deciding not to say anything after all. Jack was glad—his daughter was not stupid—in fact she was anything but, but he didn’t want to sit down and have the discussion about the other woman in the conversation here, her name silent in the room.

“You made her jealous” Ellie said finally.

“Oh do you think so?” Jack asked trying not to sound pleased even though they had given no name to the person of whom they were speaking about.

“Did you not get a look at her when Concetta was _brushing down your jacket_?” Ellie asked her tone bordering on the incredulous and that was rather insulting Jack thought finally.

“No” he said finally.

“Good Lord Dad” Ellie said with an eye roll and a brisk tone that made him smile into his forkful of food.

“You are so dense”

Jack pretended not to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is always adored.


	23. Unknown Soldiers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone realises how far their come since they first met. 
> 
> Phryne gets a stark awakening of who she is and where she’s come from. 
> 
> Jack gets a good look at what could have been if things had gone differently during the war. 
> 
> Hugh struggles with his future plans. 
> 
> Bit less dialogue than usual and a shorter chapter. Ellie does not appear in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi so here is another chapter, I apologise for the lateness of this chapter but I have been inundated with exams and results. However here is the chapter and I hope you all enjoy even if it didn't turn out exactly as I would have liked. 
> 
> Next chapter will have a lot more action i can promise you, this one was more of a filler chapter. And Ellie will make an apperance i can promise you that as well. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just Ellie. 
> 
> Please Read and Review.

She had not exactly gone out looking for trouble. Or another man. But she found them. Phryne had never had trouble looking for men. Men looked at her and usually she responded however this time it was most strange. She couldn’t look at another man without comparing him to Jack. And that was most disturbing. Of course, she knew why she was subconsciously rejecting every man she got a look at but she had to admit she was damned if she had any idea about what to do about it. Jack was hardly the man to be bowled over by some sort of mad declaration in the middle of the night after several glasses (or bottles) of champagne by a woman in a rather skimpy blue dress that showed of half her back. She highly doubted that Ellie would appreciate it.

And that was another thing to consider because Phryne had never been in a situation where she had felt so left footed. She had never been with a man who had, had any other entanglements. There had never been a moment where she had, had to consider anyone else—there had never been a moment where she had even contemplated keeping a man on longer than a few weeks at best. She had always been a love them and leave them kind of type. Somewhere around the third glass of champagne she was forced to consider she could not take a step forwards with her relationship with Jack (no matter what she wanted) without getting Ellie’s approval.

The thought of going to Ellie and asking her what she thought of seeing Phryne in her pyjama’s making breakfast was almost laughable. She could never do that.

And that explained how Phryne came home alone at seven in the morning her head pounding and in need of a hot bath, a hot cup of coffee and a warm bed with the sheets that she had told Dot to change the night before.

Truly what she was going to do when that woman married Hugh and started a family and would eventually turn in her notice she had no idea. Cry she imagined. Of course she had Mr Butler and Burt and Cec but she knew it wouldn’t be the same. Not that she could tell Dot any of this. She had a feeling her friend would not be impressed at the rather impure thoughts that Phryne had towards the police inspector that kept coming for dinner and leaving later and later each time.

She had all but collapsed on the sofa in her room when the door banged open. She could have cried honestly. Couldn’t a woman have a moment to take her high heels off and bitch in her head about her life?

But of course she could hear shouting and the person shouting sounded like he had not hit puberty yet and that was…new…the voice was also male which was strange. Phryne wasn’t aware that she was advertising to the children of Victoria or Melbourne. Hell she had enough problems dealing with the upper class. She thought of Melba Cruise and shuddered feeling like she needed to wash her mouth out. Though she had to admit that Ellie had handled that situation perfectly.

And that was when she met Paddy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back at the house (after the morgue) she found that she could get changed and think in peace. She needed to clear her head for this case but she found she couldn’t. Phryne’s thoughts were jumbling around inside like a broken record. She had once promised herself that if she was lucky and got out of the slum that was Collingswood then she was never going to set one foot in it again. She had moved too far forwards to go back now and she was sure as hell not going to go back into that shit for anything else other than a dead child.

She felt ill thinking about what her childhood had been like. She had been dirt poor, starving and on more than one occasion a thief. She had broken the law in the same way she had broken people’s noses and she’d had a father that like the gambling tables and a sister who had like to hear stories of rich actresses that they saw in the newspapers that they liked to steal out of rich people’s bins along with whatever else they could find.

And then there had been the war. The move to England when her mother’s first cousin her died and then as more of them had laid to waste with the aristocracy of 1914 she had seen the rise of her social status. By the time she had hit twenty she had been wearing silk and satin under her nurses uniform and been invited to court balls where she had still been viewed as the outsider (that had culminated in a story where she had gotten slaughtered on champagne after 1915 and had slugged the daughter of Viscount in the garden when she had said something about Janey but that was admittedly a story for another time).

Going back into the shit of Collingswood again would mean channelling a different girl who she thought she had left behind a very long time ago. She wasn’t sure if she was ready for the emotional damage that would come with walking the same streets she had walked nearly twenty years ago where she had, had no shoes and she had, had a sister on her other arm. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to see the haunted image of the Fisher sisters walking down the main street of the biggest slum of the state just yet. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to see that image ever. Already it was burned behind her brains.

But…but Paddy had asked her. He had asked her to investigate his brother’s disappearance and more to the point Mac had asked her to investigate. The boy in the morgue whose name was Badger was one of the unknown boys who had lived on the fringes of Collingswood—who had nobody, who trusted neither cops nor welfare and had struggled to make do. No wonder the boy had turned to crime. Jane had, Paddy had, hell on more than one occasion she had.

Speaking of which she would have to keep Paddy nearby just in case. Dot would feed him and she would have to see about a bath and good delousing. Good thing the new Dot liked a challenge. Getting a teenage boy who had lived in Collingswood for most of his life near a lousing comb was going to take all of Dot’s not inconsiderable talent.

She threw her shoes over the bed and winced as she heard them clatter. She was not the type of woman who wore things once and didn’t touch them again—she had learned the hard way that nice things were hard to come by and that money should never be taken for granted. It could all go away in a moment.

Paddy needed her. There was a pause where she stood there staring at herself in the mirror and acknowledging in that one long moment where she stared at herself and saw despite the make up and the glitter and the lines near her eyes, despite the fact that she was not that old. She thought she could see more of her mother in that gaze rather than her sister who had always resembled their father. She felt as old and as tired as her mother as well. And she needed more concealer as well. There was a long pause that seemed to stretch even longer and then there was a knock on the door that made her jump and turn around the retort on her lips before she realised that it was probably Dot.

“Coming” she said and she was mostly proud of the fact that her voice did not stumble or tremble. She pulled herself away from memory lane and forced herself out of her room down the stairs and towards the boy who was looking at her like she could save him from his very own box seat in the worst kind of hell possible. Phryne would know. Thanks to Murdoch Foyle she’d had a gold bossed seat in that personal hell and she would be damned if another kid ended up their and she was doing nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“He’s a monster man” Paddy told him seriously. “Are you sure he didn’t have anything to do with Ned’s disappearance, or Badger’s death? I mean I know he’s dead and everything. You don’t think he overdosed on purpose? I mean it makes sense doesn’t it?” he turned back towards his sandwich and Jack winced as a dollop of jam landed on his desk. That was going to be painful to get out if it dried.

Jack paused trying not to think to hard. He really didn’t want it to be Archie. He really didn’t because if it was Archie then he would have to vilify a man that had been through so much in one lifetime. He had probably been ordinary—an ordinary man that had one day had his face blown off by a grenade or some shell or something and then life as he had known it was over. Jack knew that Mac and her Doctor friend had probably thought that she had been doing him a favour. That they could repair the damage.

They couldn’t. There was only so much that medicine in this day and age could do. And the pain…the pain must have been so strong that he couldn’t even manage without extra’s. Pain like that…Jack could only imagine. Perhaps Archie had taken the way out simply because there was nothing else he could do. And immoral or not (depending on what you believed) Jack could bloody well understand.

Paddy took another mouthful and Jack wondered weather or not anyone had bothered to tell the kid to eat with his mouth shut. He had to look away and resist the urge to smack his head onto the desk repeatedly. What was it with Miss Fisher and her streetwise strays? God help him if she ended up fostering this one or his missing brother. Chances are half of Collingswood would end up trampling through that red and white house.

He turned back to his file. This knife was at the lab. Phryne was next door trying to console the nurse who had ran away from a murder charge and an abusive husband (and he was fully expecting a rant—one that he agreed with if he was being honest with himself about the injustice of the system towards domestic violence victims) and he couldn’t see a way out of this case where the he would feel bad about arresting the victims. He had already been through this with the Mariana/Vincenzo/Concetta debacle and he was not in right mind to deal with another case like that.

If it wasn’t Paddy—the reality was that it was another kid—and Jack really didn’t think he could stand the idea of sticking too big handcuffs on some kid’s gangly wrists simply because he had been trying to survive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The whole thing had been a mess Hugh thought. It was over now but he knew that both the inspector, Miss Fisher and himself had been plagued with thoughts over this case from the start never mind what Dotty must have been feeling. Hugh hated the idea of sticking handcuffs on a child. He hated the idea of men’s faces being stuck back together and infections spreading and pain and misery all because one day the wrong thing had happened. He also hated the fact that he had heard nothing back about his promotion and his mother had told him to sling his hook. He had nothing, no family, no chances of improving his job, and if he didn’t come up with something soon once he and Dotty found somewhere to rent then they would never be out of that cycle.

He watched as the Inspector led Paddy to his brother. Ned had been cooling his heels in the cell but he jumped up when he saw his brother and the two boys embraced so fiercely it was a wonder the bones didn’t crack or break. The Inspector walked away and Hugh got the distinct impression that if nothing happened to stop the two brothers having a moment alone then Hugh wouldn’t be in the firing line. He swallowed again turning back to his papers and trying to pretend that there was no wetness in his eyes.

It was always the cases that you least expected that would creep up on you and it happened when you least expected it to boot. Hugh was learning that now.

He was learning a lot now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always spelling and grammar was not my strongest suit so please keep that in mind when reading. 
> 
> Feedback is always welcomed and I will continue to work on the final three chapters of this story.


	24. Slaughter Of Innocence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hugh is on a leave of absence, Phryne has lost a cousin but gained the added presence of her aunt, Jack is investigating with some replacement constable who he wants to, but doesn’t like and Baron Henry George Fisher makes a return which infuriates his daughter and amuses Ellie to no end. Phryne meanwhile asks Ellie a question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so here is another chapter. I am thrilled I can get this chapter published sooner rather than later and that there are only two more chapters left. The final chapter of this fanfiction will probably be an epilogue as well so it might be a bit shorter. 
> 
> As always spelling and grammar are not my strongest suit so please keep that in mind when reading. 
> 
> Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just Ellie.

Hugh was on a leave of absence. Her Dad said something about fishing and trying to recuperate after a bad disappointment and that he’d be back and they’d be back to wedding planning before long. Ellie thought that perhaps Hugh had seen the light in his relationship that seemed (certainly to her) like Dot was doing all the taking and Hugh was getting nothing in return. Ellie was a Protestant like her mother and father before her and she had gone to Church when she was a child but like many things that had fallen through when Sidney Fletcher had walked through the front door and ruined the life that she had known.

Arthur Stanley had also died in the months that had passed in a summer that seemed to never end. It had not been totally unexpected so she had gathered. Arthur’s faculties had been limited and along with them his physical strength had somewhat diminished. He’d had a weak heart to boot and when the hot air had gotten into his lungs and he’d begun to run a fever…well Ellie was told that Prudence Stanley had been well prepared and that she supposed had to mean something to a woman who ran her life in a way that would have made a regimented officer weep with envy. Ellie had gone to the funeral alongside her father and she had mourned genuinely the man who had tugged on her hair that one night she had met him and had said when he had seen her costume over and over again.

“Angel”

It wasn’t hard to feel grief at the passing of such a gentle soul as Arthur Stanley. And despite the fact that she had always considered Mrs Stanley an indomitable, solid presence it was not hard to feel for the woman who had lost husband and son and had that Christmas in times gone by learnt that her husband had been innocent of the blame that had followed him into an early grave.

Either way she suspected that while the woman still gave her a charming smile there was something about the way that she was now at Phryne’s more and more that told Ellie that loneliness had made it’s way into the older woman’s house and would not be leaving. The fact that she was now spending time with Burt and Cec was again proof of that and Ellie thought it was both amusing and heart-warming to see the proud and high minded older woman and the two somewhat course warfies sitting down in the kitchen over a plate of scones and some tea and trying to sort out the mess that was this decade they were living in.

(Ellie didn’t know it then but that was one of the better decades of the twentieth century)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She didn’t mean to run into ‘Baron Henry George Fisher’ again. In fact one meeting with the man was enough to last her the rest of her lifetime but she had walked in to the prescient following a less than productive phone call with the new Constable where he had told her rather snootily that he could not give information about her father out over the phone and was all set to tear his head off when the door opened and she saw coming out of the her father’s office, Phryne’s father.

“Oh holy shit” she said laughing before she could stop herself. She couldn’t. Henry George Fisher was the only man who could outwit his daughter and for that Ellie and she also knew by association her father had something of a deep respect for the man. Also Ellie who had her own issues with her parents couldn’t help but grin at the look of exasperation on her friends face. Henry George Fisher Baron of Rich didn’t seem to see what Ellie was seeing and instead he swept out his hands nearly hitting her father in the face and said loudly as if he was on the stage, “Eleanor Robinson my dear, my dear! How delighted I am to see you”

“Baron” Ellie said feeling rather overwhelmed by this welcome that she had not expected in the slightest. Baron Rich came over and in the way that Ellie had seen the French do in pages of Vogue kissed her on both cheeks and then picked up her hand and kissed that. If Ellie was being honest with herself it was the most that she had been kissed…ever…

“Good to see you my girl! Good to see you. And that reminds me. I have a length of blue silk for you sent over specially from Paris. Phryne hear knows a good woman with a needle and you can make it into a dress for you”

“Thanks” Ellie said because it was always nice to receive a present even if it was from a man that she had known for all of two hours and was as old as her grandfather.

All of her experiences should have prepared her to run away in horror. Sidney had tried the same tact a long time ago in bribing her but there was something about the Baron that made her feel as if she was in the presence of an indulgent grandparent rather than a threat. She doubted weather or not he had a malicious bone in his body. He was a spendthrift and both a hard drinker and a hard gambler and she doubted she would feel this amused in seeing him as she would have done if she’d had him as her father as Phryne had done but she did in her own way trust him.

Her father made a coughing noise as if to break up the moment but Ellie was already pulling back. There was another long pause as the four of them stood in one doorway and then in a wild attempt to break the obvious tension Ellie said as cheerfully as she could, “So Baron are you alright or…”

“Oh my dear I am being accused by my own flesh and blood! And I am being deprived of the company of Enid”

“Eh…oh”

Well really what was she supposed to say to that?

“Anyways I must go. It was lovely to see you my dear but I have to get back to the hotel and find that silk I promised you.” He kissed her on the hand again and then went in a walk that was almost a saunter out of the door before any of the somewhat stunned occupants could call him back.

“I’d almost forgotten how…eccentric…he was” Ellie said finally.

“Eccentric is hardly the word that I would use” Phryne snapped and then she grabbed her coat. “If you will excuse me I have to go and make sure the old coot doesn’t get himself killed crossing the road”

And with that she was gone.

Her father put one hand on her elbow and gestured her towards the office and Ellie suspected the reason was because he didn’t want to talk in front of his new constable who seemed to be staring at some picture of what looked like Dot with a rather sappy expression on his face.

“What the hell?” she asked as he closed the door behind her. “Does your new constable have feelings for Dot?”

“I doubt feelings are the right word for it” her father said grimly. “I think he more than likely values a woman that speaks her mind, which I suppose is not a bad thing in this brave new world that Phryne wants to enter at such a speed. Anyway, what was that thing with her father?”

“Hey I never asked him to get me a new dress. Though I suppose I do need one what with the graduation ball coming up at the end of next year. Either way he likes me and I do kinda like him. Not like want to spend time with him like him but I do think she’s being a bit hard on him. After all you only have one father”

“Why thanks darling that makes me feel so loved” her father said dryly. “Now to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

Ellie paused trying to think. She was pretty sure there was a reason for her coming to see him but the visit with ‘Henry George Fisher the Baron of Rich’ had if she was being honest with herself driven the whole thing out of her mind. She paused.

“I don’t know” She said simply. “He’s made me forget”

“Yes” her Dad said in much the same dry tone. “The Fishers do make you do that don’t they? Do you want lunch”

Ellie considered this for a moment. She was in truth very hungry but where to go. Thanks to Miss Fisher she had had both a good and bad experience of Italian and Chinese cooking and French as well she supposed.

What about the new Spanish restaurant? Oh no wait she’d been from Spain that night she had gotten her tits out for half of the Imperial Club. Was there any place they could go and eat that wouldn’t remind them of a case? She was guessing not really.

“Yeah I suppose. If you have a place in mind.”

“I’m sure we can find something” her Dad said turning back to his file and closing it with a snap. There was another heartbeat of pause and Ellie knew he was thinking the same thing that she had just been thinking about.

Dratted Fishers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phryne had gone up to change. Her father was in some cottage far away from the man who wanted him dead, though how long said man would remain unconscious and how long her father would continue to avoid the obvious which was why he was after them was another story in it’s entirety. Aunt Prue was back on the charity circuit after her season in London post Arthur’s death which had to be a good thing. The replacement Constable whose name was really not worth mentioning was gone and Jack had said during their waltz at The Grand that he was prepared to go to the bat for Hugh and his promotion.

Phryne would have been more than happy to give them enough money to buy a house in a respectable neighbourhood and call it a wedding gift but when she had suggested this Jack had shook his head and had pointed out that, “He’s got pride just as much as the next young man. And pride’s what will keep him from accepting it. Not that I blame him”

He paused to twirl her around the dance floor before the music had ended and he was facing her again and she was left with little space between them.

Fortunately that the phone ringing had forced them apart. She had then gone and invited Jack to dinner and told him to bring Ellie. She did feel a bit bad about it springing this on Ellie like this, waiting outside her bedroom for when the girl came out of the bathroom but this was getting insane. She needed to think about what she was going to do. She wanted to be with Jack in a way she had never wanted to be with a man before.

She could even see her breaking the cardinal rule of her life and having children with him—and that was something she had sworn off a long time ago. Jane had been enough for her. All along she had maintained that Jane was enough for her.

And yet she now understood that all encompassing love for your child. Before Jane the closest thing that she had managed to have in terms of that kind of love was her sister and still she woke up in the night convinced she could have done more. Perhaps if she was with the right man then having children wouldn’t be a thing that sent panic crawling through her veins but rather joy.

Maybe.

Ellie came out the bathroom and Phryne chose her moment well, she seized Ellie by the arm and then dragged her back into the bedroom shutting the door behind them. Ellie stared at her as if she had gone mad which to be fair was not a completely insane assumption if her behaviour was anything to go by.

“What the hell?”

“I need to ask you something. In private. Woman to woman.”

Ellie raised an eyebrow.

“Me…and your Dad…if I was too…make a move would you…be alright with that?”

Ellie’s face hardened somewhat.

“You don’t need my permission for a one night stand. You’ve had hundreds before now. What does it matter if you have one more?”

Phryne ignored the jab and didn’t deign to comment on the fact that she had not had hundreds of one night stands. Just several. And she was not ashamed of them…well…there had been that one man in France that had sounded a bit too German for her liking but…well Rene had been a memory she had been desperate to forget.

Refusing to dwell on the past she shook her head. Now was the time to speak her truth.

“I don’t want him as a one night stand. I want him. Ellie I think I love him”

Ellie’s mouth dropped open.

“I think I need a drink” she said finally.

“Is it alright with you if I make a move. Can…I don’t want to take Rosie’s place…”

Ellie snorted and muttered something that sounded like “Wouldn’t take much” but she ignored her.

Ellie stared up at her again.

“Your serious about this. About him?”

Phryne opened her mouth and then paused as the knock on the door interrupted them.

It was Dot.

“Dinner’s ready Miss. And the Inspector is wondering what your both doing up here”

“Yeah” Ellie said her voice strange. “I bet he is”

And then before Phryne could answer she had gone down the stairs still with a rather stunned look on her face and Phryne had no choice but to go downstairs to the man she loved and her friends and her family and sit through a meal fully aware that she had not gotten the blessing of one woman who had held Jack’s heart and who might not be prepared to share it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I hope you all enjoy. 
> 
> Feedback as always is welcomed.

**Author's Note:**

> And there it is! I hope you all enjoy! 
> 
> I will always try to be regular when updating and therefore i will try and have the next chapter posted as soon as possible however with both work and uni there might be some delays.


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